SURINA ESTERHUYSE, Lecturer Centre for Environmental Management, University of the Free State RECENTLY, news reports revealed plans by a Canadian oil and gas company, ReconAfrica, to explore for oil and gas in some of Africa’s most sensitive protected areas. These areas include the Namibian headwaters of the Okavango delta and a world heritage site, Tsodilo Hills, in Botswana. Plans are afoot to explore inside the Kavango-Zambezi transfrontier conservation area. Both conventional and unconventional oil and gas are the targets. Conventional oil and gas occur in porous geological formations. Unconventional oil and gas occur in impermeable geological formations and need specialised…