Kenyans Fear Dakatcha Woodlands Biofuel Expansion

Kenyans fear Dakatcha Woodlands biofuel growth

23 March 2011

By Will Ross

BBC News, Dakatcha

Sitting in the shade of a tree next to his thatched mud hut in in Kenya’s Dakatcha Woodlands, Joshua Kahindi Pekeshe is defiant.

“We are not going to let this land go even if it means shedding blood,” he told the BBC.

“Land is really essential to us. We farm and get our livelihood from it. On this land we bury our dead.”

He is among the numerous people opposed to the production of a large biofuel plantation in the area, about an hour’s drive inland from the seaside town of Malindi.

It is an arid location and home to some 20,000 people along with globally threatened animal and bird types.

Ambitious objectives

An Italian company has actually asked the authorities for consent to rent 50,000 hectares there to grow jatropha, whose seeds are rich in oil that can be developed into bio-diesel.

This plant, initially from South America, has actually long been grown in Africa as a hedge to keep out animals – goats stay well away as it is harmful. The area affected is neighborhood land which is being kept in trust by the local council.

Kenya Jatropha Energy Ltd is 100%-owned by the Milan-based Nuove Iniziative Industriali SRL.

It has rented almost a million hectares in Africa; jatropha oil from a plantation in Senegal is being provided to the Swedish furniture seller Ikea. Other companies have actually rented land for the exact same function in Ethiopia, Mozambique and Ghana, along with in India.

This growth has been spurred by the European Union, which has actually set enthusiastic objectives for decreasing greenhouse gas emissions and decreasing its dependence on imported oil.

The 27 EU nations have signed up to a regulation which states that by 2020, 20% of energy need to be from sustainable sources, external.

Why is Africa affected?

Because it is tough to discover 50,000 hectares of available land to grow a in, for example, the UK or Italy.

Why ‘feed’ a vehicle?

But project groups have labelled some of the jobs in Africa “land grabs” with alarming consequences for the often voiceless African communities.

Some ask: “Why ‘feed’ a vehicle in Europe when hunger in your home is still a truth?”

“Our future is no longer in our hands. We have been informed we need to move because they desire to plant jatropha here,” said 27-year-old Merciline Koi, a mother of 2, who added that there had been no offer of payment for leaving her home in Dakatcha Woodlands.

Kenya Jetropha Energy Ltd says the settlements are over – the federal government has actually okayed for a pilot project to begin with 10,000 hectares and all it is awaiting now is the last documents.

The business states numerous permanent and countless seasonal jobs will be created and it denies that anyone will be displaced by the job.

“We want to protect your houses and the personal property. We will farm around your houses,” Kenya Jatropha Energy Ltd head Girardello Adriano informed the BBC from Milan.

“We are assisting these people. They are extremely delighted for this job. No-one will be moved.”

How green are biofuels?

According to the Kenyan federal government’s environment watchdog, the offer has actually not yet been sealed. It turned down the preliminary 50,000-hectare request citing issues over the effect on the environment and the sustainability of the job.

“We were suggesting 1,000 hectares … We have actually told them to justify if the number needs to change and that is why we haven’t authorized the project already,” stated Benjamin Malwa Langwen, of the National Environment Management Authority (Nema).

However, there are now fresh calls for the Dakatcha project to be ditched as new research study calls into question whether jatropha is really a greener alternative to oil.

The anti-poverty project group ActionAid and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) commissioned a report to investigate just how green the jatropha project in Kenya’s Dakatcha forests would be.

The research study by the consultancy group North Energy, external discovered that jatropha would emit between 2.5 and 6 times more greenhouse gases when compared to fossil fuels.

This is partly because big quantities of carbon are saved in the forests’ vegetation and soil but the plantation would indicate clearing the land of this plant life.

“The report reveals that EU policies are silly policies because they are not reducing greenhouse gas emissions as the EU is declaring,” said ActionAid’s Chris Coxon.

“The proposed biofuel plantation will devastate the woodlands, driving the globally threatened Clarke’s Weaver bird to extinction and depriving countless regional people of their livelihoods,” said Helen Byron of the RSPB.

In action, the EU Commission safeguarded its energy policy as “the most detailed and innovative sustainability scheme for biofuels throughout the world”.

Unorthodox methods

At the remote Mulunguni primary school, which lies within the Dakatcha Woodlands, numerous new classrooms and pit latrines have just been constructed.

They were part moneyed by the European Union – the very organisation which is now implicated of pushing policies which locals fear might see the school shut down.

“My concern is the displacement of the neighborhood. It is bad to construct a classroom and then send out the students away,” said the deputy head Godfrey Karissa.

“Yes we require tasks. But a farm without a home is not excellent. You need to have a home before you go to your task.”

There are clearly issues on the ground that when the lease is signed, the population will be at the mercy of a profit-driven company.

Ikea states it will not source jatropha oil from Kenya until it can be sure that this will not add to the conversion of natural environments.

“This switch from fossil fuels to sustainable energy should never ever be at the expenditure of people or the environment,” Ikea told the BBC in a declaration.

The forests are also a rich source of product for conventional medication.

If they feel let down by the government and the local authorities, residents simply might turn to unconventional approaches in a quote to keep the land.

“If all the elders come together for one goal, then it is very easy to eliminate him with our medicines,” stated Barova Kiribai, a traditional healer, describing the owner of the Italian biofuels business.

The fate of the individuals here is in the hands of the Kenyan government and Malindi’s municipal council.

It is not surprising they are stressed.

Kenya’s political leaders do not have an excellent performance history when it comes to operating in the interests of individuals.

ActionAid

Kenya jatropha curcas Energy

RSPB

Nema

Ikea