David Barissa Team Leader, AAIK, Coast Region About Kenya in brief - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

EU Energy Policy Driving agrofuels land grabs in Kenya

David Barissa Team Leader, AAIK, Coast Region

About Kenya in brief

• Has a population of about 40M people (2009,

census)

• Over 50% living below the poverty line
• 11M people hungry, without food, over 5M

children face malnutrition

• Net food importer
• Faced with recurrent drought and famine,
• ccasioning calls for humanitarian support

Drivers and Main proponents

MAIN DRIVERS

• Energy crisis and renewable targets
• Food crisis
• Financial crisis

WHO ARE THE MAIN PROPONENTS?

• Asian powers seeking to secure food supply
• Oil-rich (but land and water poor) Gulf States
• European and North American banks, financiers and

sovereign funds, investing in land (responding to financial crisis)

• European and North American companies responding

to policy targets

• All

the above in partnerships with African governments and/or domestic partners craving for FDI

Two essential problems

1) Insecure local user rights: Local/national lack

• f protection

2) Biofuel craze/boom : EU 10% target and lacking available land in North

Environmental impacts

• Clearing of forests / felling of trees
• Pollution arising from use of agro-

chemicals

• Loss of biodiversity especially for

endemic species (flora and fauna)

Grabbing of agricultural lands

• Displacement of mainstream food production
• Depletion of water resources
• Breeding conflicts between communities due to

shrinking resources amidst growing population

Examples of Land grabs

Company Size and terms Leasers Uses Impacts

Bedford Biofuels inc. (Canada) 90,000ha, 45yrs County council

• f Tana River

Jatropha curcas Loss of biodiversity, conflicts, displaced livelihoods Kenya Jatropha Energy ltd (Italy) 50,000ha, 33yrs, @2 Euros/ha County council

• f Malindi

Jatropha Curcas 20,000 people at risk of displacement, environmental destruction, water depletion, displaced food production Nile Trading

• Co. (USA)

600,000ha, to expand to 1M, 40 yrs District council, South Sudan Timber, Biofuel (palm

• il & jatropha

Loss of agricultural land, forest destruction, displacement MaLIBYA 100,000ha, 50yrs, for free, 30 yrs tax exemption Maliyan President, Head

• f state, Libya

Rice, cattle,

• ther food

crops No compensation, no loss of land for small holder farmers/livestock keepers

Qatar Govt 40,000ha, 30 yrs GoK Horticultural crops Displaced livehoods, water depletion, loss of b/diversity

Recent conflicts in the Tana Delta

• Over 120 people dead
• Thousands of livestock slashed
• Houses, schools, food crops

and other property worth millions destroyed

• Land grab at the origin

Jamal is an 8yr old girl who survived the clashes

Police wander around the torched houses

Human rights violations

• Violation of the right to food
• Forced displacement, no compensation, no

alternative land

• Right to participation and right to self

determination

• Right to worship (graves, sacred forests…)

The Dakatcha Case

Make way for The wonder crop!!

• 50,000ha of community trust land

leased to Kenya Jatropha energy ltd by County council, for 33yrs @ Ksh 200 (2euros) per ha p.a

• About 20,000 people displaced
• Destruction of the indigenous forest

and water sources

The proponents

NIISrL, (Iniziative Industriali Nouve Sri), an Italian company planning to exporting biofuels from Kenya to EU, including palm

• il from Côte d'Ivoire and Malaysia.

Our Intervention….

• Community mobilization, and empowerment
• Memoranda and petitions to ministers and NEMA
• Urgent appeal to Minister: 3000 emails, 2000 hard

copies of appeal signed and sent with support from Peuples Solidaires in France

• Research and launch of a study on life cycle of

Jatropha that sought to challenge the viability of the KJEs proposal from a technical perspective.

• Filed a Court case
• Organized demonstrations / public stunts

Interventions cont…

• Hosted a team of 10

journalists to highlight the case.

• Visited

the EU parliament to lobby European decision makers and journalists .

• A lunch time debate

with EU members of parliament, hosted by Linda McAvan

Outcome

• Environmental impact

assessment conducted and shared

• Two directors have so far

been suspended from NEMA following illegal issue of certificates to firms in Coast, while NEMA also slapped a ban on growing of Jatropha in the entire coast province. (see the video

http://www.youtube.com/v/NUuDlRC6aF8& autoplay=1&rel=0).

• Project stopped completely,

withdrawal of investor

Agitated village elders in the Dakatcha woodland….

We want Food…not Jatropha!

Conclusions

1) At the root of the problem is both local governance and EU policy 2) Replacing food with energy crops is a luxury we cannot afford 3) EU can help solve the problem by adapting energy policy so that peoples rights are no longer violated