This month, the East African Crude Oil Pipeline Company applied for a license to start development, intended to take place early next year. The project’s potential environmental and social risks have led to major outcry from environmentalists and are likely the reason why 20 banks have declined to finance the project so far. Yet, there are no talks of terminating the project among its developers, Total Energies and China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC), or the Ugandan government. Instead, the project’s backers have diverted the conversation away from stopping the project by focusing on their alleged efforts to mitigate environmental harm.

EACOP would violate at least four of the Banks and Biodiversity No Go Areas, namely No Go Area 1, areas recognized by international agreements and conventions, and No Go Area 3, habitats with endemic or endangered species. In violation of the World Heritage and Ramsar Conventions, the pipeline would pass through or near Ngorongoro National Park (World Heritage site) and the Murchison Falls-Albert Delta Wetland System (Ramsar site), among many other protected areas. Further, EACOP would threaten species on the IUCN Red List, including to Eastern chimpanzees (Endangered), lions (Vulnerable) and African elephants (Vulnerable).

Despite this, the project is moving forward with the endorsement of Uganda’s President Museveni. And now, Total Energies and CNOOC are trying to appear environmentally conscious by exploring efforts to minimize biodiversity impacts, while ignoring the fact that an oil pipeline located in or near highly sensitive areas should never have been considered in the first place.

“We tried to find a compromise in that if oil activities were to be done, they should be done with care for the ecosystem,” Uganda Wildlife Authority’s warden for enforcing the project’s environmental and social impact assessment compliance told Al Jazeera.

Simply put, there should be no compromise when a project’s potential harm is as grave as EACOP’s. Instead, the ecosystems and communities that will be devastated by EACOP should have been off limits from the start. Read more from Al Jazeera here.