Tag Archives: africa

Let them eat carbon! The corporate plan to cook Africa in its own fossil fuels Updated for 2026

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If you have ever wondered about what is blocking action against climate change, consider this.

There’s an estimated £19 trillion GBP ($28 trillion) worth of fossil fuel reserves in the world. Only 20% of these can be extracted and burned if the world is to stay below a 2°C temperature rise from pre-industrial levels and avoid catastrophic climate change.

The sensible solution to tackling global warming is thus clear and simple: keep these fossil fuels underground. This means that £15 trillion ($22 trillion) worth of carbon must remain untouched. To burn it would be tantamount to committing global suicide!

So, why is no real action being taken to tackle global warming? Because it’s all about capital: profit, not people and planet. It’s about the insatiable appetite for financial accumulation by fossil fuel companies, their shareholders and their agents.

To avoid a catastrophic temperature rise, industrial economies must urgently decarbonise the way they travel, power and move things. Even a 2°C rise in global temperature would have huge impacts. In Africa, this ‘safe’ 2° will in effect translate to a 3°C increase. The current ‘business as usual’ fossil fuel path we are on is set to burn up and fossilise the African continent.

And yet, though the stakes could not be higher, rather than halting the exploration and extraction of fossil fuels, corporations are digging deeper and using ever more extreme means of extraction. In this effort they are aided by their unprecedented political connections.

Papering over Africa’s scars

Chatham House’s Extractive Industries in Africa conference, which concludes today, has brought together miners and politicians to discuss strategies for exploiting Africa’s mineral resources. It is a clear indicator that the quest for profit does not consider the great harm inflicted on the continent and our shared climate.

Indeed, the damage done by the extractives sector goes beyond climate impacts and includes a wholesale disregard for human rights, the displacement of communities and unthinkable levels of pollution of land, water and the air.

The scars of mining in Africa are visible in the coal mines of South Africa, the gold mines of Ghana and Mali, as well as in the devastation caused by oil companies in the once verdant ecosystems of the Niger Delta. It is also well known that mining causes many of the persistent violent conflicts in Africa.

Sadly, however, ecological destruction for the purpose of appropriating ounces of minerals is often not seen as outright violence as it lays waste to the life support system that is our environment.

Designed to exclude civil society? That’s how it looks

By hosting this conference in London, not Africa, and charging exorbitant fees – £580 is the cheapest fee for non-member NGOs – Chatham House has effectively prevented the participation of African civil society and community members.

In doing so, the think tank has, intentionally or unintentionally, attempted to silence the people best able to describe the true costs of the extractive industries and to contest Chatham House’s conservative development narrative of ‘resource extraction = growth’.

Fearing that this may well be another Berlin Conference (1880) aimed at carving up and appropriating the African continent’s resources, we delivered an open letter from African Civil Society to conference organisers and participants on the afternoon of Monday 16th March.

In it we raise the voices of African communities and civil society and call upon Chatham House to show genuine leadership of thought. They must recognise that now is the time to think of the future of people and planet, not the health of the extractive industries.

Not a land grab – a continent grab!

Mining companies have learned new strategies for pulling the wool over the eyes of unsuspecting members of the public who invest in their stocks and thus back up the atrocious actions of these companies.

Through public-private partnerships with mining and fossil fuel companies, governments and other public bodies are sucked into unequal partnerships.

For the companies these partnerships offer legitimacy, a better image and a social license to operate as supposed agents of development. For public bodies and governments the equality of these relationships is merely illusory. A few will benefit, most will not.

Chatham House’s conference directly promotes such joint initiatives to give the extractive industries further access to Africa’s wealth. Yet it is clear that tactics such as public-private partnerships, so-called corporate social responsibility, good governance and transparency are too often mere green washing initiatives.

Despite these token efforts, Africa is experiencing new levels of ecosystem destruction and the intensification of poverty in impacted communities as part of what the No REDD Africa Network have described as a “continent grab“.

The time has come to challenge out-dated gatherings like that at Chatham House that exclude the voices of the people. We must move into the present by envisioning a fossil free future, reimagining our systems of design, consumption and use.

This cannot happen whilst we continue to sugar-coat destructive, unsustainable mining. The level of destruction already inflicted on Africa is nothing short of ecocide.

Rather than finding underhand ways to exploit new mineral and fossil fuel reserves in Africa, extractive companies should be challenged to invest in clean-up and environmental restoration activities.

These companies must not be allowed to position themselves as saviours when they have been the abusers of the African continent. They must be held accountable.

 

 

Read the letter to Chatham House from African Civil Society groups and their supporters here.

Nnimmo Bassey is a published poet, head of Home of Mother Earth Foundation, Nigeria and former Chair of Friends of the Earth International. He also runs Oilwatch International. Bassey’s poetry collections include ‘We Thought It Was Oil But It Was Blood’ (2002) and ‘I will Not Dance to Your Beat’ (Kraft Books, 2011). His latest book, ‘To Cook a Continent’ (Pambazuka Press, 2012) deals with destructive fossil fuel industries and the climate crisis in Africa. He was listed as one of Time magazine’s Heroes of the Environment in 2009 and won the 2010-Right Livelihood Award also known as the ‘Alternative Noble Prize.’

Sheila Berry is a psychologist and long time environmental justice activist from South Africa. She is currently fighting alongside South African communities in KwaZulu Natal to protect the iMfolozi Wilderness Area from Ibutho Coal’s plans to build Fuleni open-cast coal mine just 40m from the park’s edge.

Both Nnimmo and Sheila are members of Yes to life, No to Mining, a global solidarity movement of and for communities who wish to say no to mining out of a shared commitment to protect Earth for future generations.

 




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Algeria: fracking and the Ain Salah uprising Updated for 2026

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The city of Ain Salah lies about 750 miles south of Algiers in the Sahara Desert.

Its location as a desert oasis relies on a sensitive aquifer system that stretches from Southern Algeria to Tunesia and Libya, and overlaps with at least four intensive shale gas fields.

Fracking commenced in the area in 2013, and a mass movement against the practice has rapidly unfolded.

This new turn against resource extraction and exploitation has emerged elsewhere in recent months, such as Burkina Faso, as the global push to extract resources ranging from gold to agricultural commodities to fossil fuels has led to widespread dispossession in Africa since the onset of the financial crisis in 2008.

It carries with it the revolutionary sentiment the drove Algeria to independence from France, leading a tidal wave of liberation movements throughout Africa.

Since New Years Eve, four days after fracking operations were announced near the city, Ain Salah has effectively stopped functioning in a conventional way. Commerce and administration has moved between business as usual and an extensive occupation / sit-in of the main square, along with several rallies.

Video and photographic evidence has been released exposing harmful pollution and contaminated water supplies, causing an uproar and sense that fracking must be stopped.

Halliburton, Total

The companies primarily involved in exploiting shale gas in Algeria include Halliburton and France’s major oil company, Total.

After settling a major bribery case in Nigeria in 2010, Halliburton, the leading oilfield services company in the world, began looking to Africa for increased gas exploitation in 2012. As fracking began to slow in the US, they made a major play for Algeria, which has the second highest proven gas reserves in Africa.

For its part, Total grabbed oil lands in Libya after the NATO invasion that toppled the government of Muammar Qaddafi in 2011, but the collapse of national infrastructure that ensued has significantly hindered the once-strong oil industry.

In December 2013, the National Oil Corporation announced its intensions to bolster the economy by allowing oversees corporations like Total to commence fracking operations.

The outbreak of violence in Libya had severe repercussions in Mali to the south, as armed militants swept into the country and added a surge to the Tuareg separatist uprising the next year. With hundreds of thousands displaced in the ensuing calamity, increased unrest combined with severe drought and the recent Ebola outbreak to create difficult economic conditions.

In an ironic turn, Halliburton was forced to cut 1,000 employees last December, it claimed, due to the turmoil in West Africa caused in no small part by French intervention on behalf of Total’s access to natural resources.

Now the two companies are making plays for Algeria’s gas reserves. The combined total assets of Halliburton and Total comes close to 40% of Algeria’s GDP, and the President of Algeria, the aging Abdelaziz Bouteflika, has not put up any opposition to their extraction efforts.

In his fourth term, Bouteflika, the longest-serving president in Algeria’s history, has weathered substantial protests in 2010 and 2012 calling for his ouster, and today he meets with a movement that extends from Ain Salah to Algiers calling for another way of looking at public control over natural resources.

Back to liberation

This different approach was manifested on February 24, when nearly the entire city of Ain Salah, some 40,000 people, took to the square, which has been renamed Place Somoud, or Resistance Square, to celebrate the 44th Anniversary of the nationalization of hydrocarbons by former-President Boumediene.

But the new approach is not simply in favor of extraction by a state-owned oil company. It’s also playing fast and loose with the aquifer that sustains Ain Salah and its precious oasis – and it’s the threat of groundwater pollution from fracking that most worries people as it imperils their very existence.

And the struggle is not simply about Ain Salah: February 24 saw mass demonstrations touch off from the town of Ouragla to Algiers. These protests challenged Algiers’s ban against protests that has been in place since the end of the terrible Civil War that claimed upwards of 150,000 lives between 1991 and 2002.

Bouteflika is seen by many as a hero who helped put a stop to the war, but now his regime is challenged by the progression of popular opposition to industrial extraction. There is concern that unrest might cause an opening for another civil war (one that Halliburton and Total could attempt to exploit), prompting harsh police reactions.

As police officers pre-empted the protest in Algeria on February 24, arresting some 50 demonstrators while national festivities were held to commemorate the day, Bouteflika’s advisor, M. Boughazi took to national TV to read a 20-minute declaration that included the admonition, “Shale gas is a gift from God, and it is our duty to exploit it.”

Police attacks, arests, insults provoke violent reaction

In the midst of the tensions that loomed over the rest of the week, protests turned violent. When a group of activists arrived at the Halliburton base in Ain Salah to protest, they were met with racist provocations by the police, who continued retaliation measures by conducting forceful arrests.

Protestors reacted to the oppressive measures by rallying at the Gendarme station, and police responded with large quantities of tear gas and rubber bullets. The police violence persisted into Resistance Square, where the rally site was destroyed and tents burned, and over the next few days, hundreds of people were arrested and numerous injuries incurred among the mostly-peaceful protestors.

Finally, as police attempted to seal off the city and lay siege to the city, protestors began throwing stones. Police retreated, and an uprising was in effect; a police barracks, a residence of the mayor, and several police vehicles were set ablaze. The army was called in, and a tense order once again held.

This is the second time serious unrest has been caused in Ain Salah over gas companies – the first having occurred in 2002, due to widespread unemployment and the stringent demands of foreign gas companies.

The economic issue stands side-by-side with the environmental one, as civil society searches for better ways of living sustainably outside of the control of corrupt foreign multinationals and a distant government.

Fracking and resistance against an effective gas grab in Algeria has become an issue for the opposition to utilize in its attempt to develop another kind of politics in the country. However, the opposition, itself, remains fractured and disorganized.

The real issues confronting Algeria are tied to the low petrodollar and the increasing inaccessibility of oil and gas reserves without unconventional practices like fracking, but the gas companies are notoriously unable to carry the weight of unemployment in places like Ain Salah.

So, like many places in the world confronted with the curse of extractive industries, Algeria must find a unique way out of the global land grab.

And now the anti-fracking movement has brought some momentum to thinking broader, long-term solutions in keeping with the revolutionary tradition of decolonization and autogestion.

 

 

Alexander Reid Ross is a contributing moderator of the Earth First! Newswire. He is the editor of Grabbing Back: Essays Against the Global Land Grab (AK Press 2014) and a contributor to Life During Wartime (AK Press 2013). His most recent book Against the Fascist Creep is forthcoming through AK Press.

This article originally appeared on CounterPunch

 




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Agroecology can feed Africa – not agribusiness Updated for 2026

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There is plenty of evidence that the livelihoods of farmers and communities can be improved, and that agroecology can deliver a huge range of other benefits.

At the beginning of March, the Guardian ran a chilling editorial warning of a looming global food crisis, saying that an “enduring lesson of history is that drought and famine feed conflict, and conflict breeds more privation, and despair.”

The good news is that there’s a whole host of ways going forward to address the challenge of sustainable food production. The bad news is that donors, development agencies and multilateral financial initiatives seem to want to move in the opposite direction.

There is now extremely good evidence that small-scale sustainable farming, or agroecology, can deliver as much if not more food than large-scale corporate-controlled agriculture.

For example, research by the UN showed that switching to agroecological farming methods has increased yields across Africa by 116% and by 128% in East Africa compared to conventional farming.

There is also plenty of evidence that the livelihoods of farmers and communities can be improved, and that agroecology can deliver a huge range of other benefits, including reducing the gender gap, creating jobs, improving people’s health, increasing biodiversity, and increasing the resilience of food systems to cope with climate change.

The malign influence of agri-corporations

So why are governments, development agencies, policy makers and funders so focused on large-scale, high-input solutions which marginalise poor and small-scale farmers, have a negative impact on our environment, and do little to increase the resilience of our food system as a whole?

The short answer is corporate power. A longer answer is that there is a significant economic and political bias in favour of large-scale industrial agriculture. This bias is created through an economic system which privileges industrial farming, large-scale land owners and monopolistic corporations, leading to political support for these vested interests.

A change in the ideological support for industrial agriculture towards agroecology and sustainable small-scale agriculture will require the political establishment and development agencies to design policies based on scientific evidence and the long-term viability of our global food system.

As the eminent agroecologist Professor Miguel Altieri has put it,

“The issue seems to be political or ideological rather than evidence or science based. No matter what data is presented, governments and donors influenced by big interests marginalize agroecological approaches focusing on quick-fix, external input intensive ‘solutions’ and proprietary technologies such as transgenic crops and chemical fertilisers.

“It is time for the international community to recognize that there is no other more viable path to food production in the twenty-first century than agroecology.“

There are many other barriers in place which prevent agroecology from being scaled up and helping to create a more robust and equitable food system.

Unfair trade rules and skewed research

For starters, there is the question of unfair trade rules and policies which force governments to sacrifice democratic decisions and priorities such as the ‘right to food’ in the name of free trade.

Many southern countries have had their agricultural sectors decimated as they have been forced to remove agricultural protections like quotas and tariffs, food stockpiles and price controls, and subsidised seeds and other inputs.

These are all seen as barriers to trade. This problem is compounded by the fact that many western countries are still allowed to subsidise agriculture, meaning small African farmers are being forced to compete with highly subsidised North American and European agribusiness.

But there’s no reason why trade has to work in this way. Trade could easily prioritise and promote the ability of small farmers to sell goods, just as certain fair trade schemes currently do.

What’s more, trade should primarily encourage local, national and regional trading relationships, ensuring countries feed themselves before throwing them into competitive relationships with established companies in the west where customers are able to spend more on food than in domestic markets.

Then there’s the question of research and investment. At the moment, most of the money for both is spent on high-tech conventional farming which relies on expensive inputs, such as chemical pesticides and fertilisers, and proprietary high-yielding seeds.

Instead, investments and research should be realigned towards sustainable farming and agroecology – particularly given the increasingly strong evidence of the benefits of these low-input practices on a wide range of environmental, social and economic indicators. Investments should not be tied to policy reforms which promote corporate-controlled economic growth at the expense of small-scale and poor farmers.

Land ownership

Finally there is the complex question of land ownership. An estimated 90% of rural land in Africa is unregistered, making it particularly susceptible to land grabs and unfair expropriation by governments on behalf of multinational corporations.

Behind the problem of insecure land tenure is a deeper rooted problem of land ownership inequality, which goes back to the colonial era and before and looms large to this day. Across the continent, households in the highest income per capita quartile control up to fifteen times more land than people in the lowest quartile.

Land tenure is a complex issue and improving tenure rights and the growth of private property rights can, in some cases, facilitate corporate land grabbing and strengthen private land ownership by already rich investors and farmers.

Corporations and other powerful actors can increase their control of land either directly, with medium and long-term leases, or through direct land purchases, but they can also control land and labour through contract farming arrangements.

Improving land tenure arrangements should go hand in hand with land reform and land redistribution which prioritises the needs of small-scale farmers and farming communities and reduces land ownership inequality.

All of these barriers can be overcome through policies which take power away from corporations currently pushing for a one-size-fits-all industrial model of agriculture, and give it back to the small-scale farmers who currently grow 70% of Africa’s food.

Democratic alternatives

At Global Justice Now, we campaign for a world where resources are in the hands of the many, not the few. We champion social movements and propose democratic alternatives to corporate power.

We need a complete shift in who controls our food system. Power must be taken away from corporations and put back into the hands of the people and communities that produce and consume food. Only a movement of people calling for food sovereignty and agroecology will create this sort of change.

 

 

Ian Fitzpatrick is a researcher with Global Justice Now.


This article is an excerpt of ‘From the roots up‘, a report about how agroecology can feed Africa. It was originally published by openDemocracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 licence.

Creative Commons License

 




391113

Palm oil wiping out Africa’s great ape rainforests Updated for 2026

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Satellite images obtained by Greenpeace Africa show that more than 3,000 hectares of rainforest bordering the Dja Faunal Reserve in Cameroon’s Southern region have been destroyed.

The cleared forest, until now home to western lowland gorillas, chimpanzees and mandrills, lies inside the Chinese-owned Hevea Sud rubber and palm oil concession.

The land was granted to the company even though it lies next to Dja Faunal Reserve, which is designated a UNESCO World Heritage site. The plantation lies in the home district of Cameroonian president Paul Biya.

UNESCO has previously requested for an inspection to be carried out to assess if any damage has been done to the Dja reserve, but permission was denied by local authorities.

“If proactive strategies to mitigate the effects of large-scale habitat conversion are not soon implemented, we can expect a rapid decline in African primate diversity”, said Dr Joshua Linder, an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at James Madison University.

“Agro-industrial developments will soon emerge as a top threat to biodiversity in the African tropical forest zone.”

A growing trend of agro-destruction

The forest clearance is significantly greater than that carried out by US company Herakles Farms for their palm oil project in the country’s South West region that has also deforested vital wildlife habitat and deprived local communities of the forest they depend on for their livelihoods.

A Greenpeace Africa investigation in December revealed that Cameroonian company Azur is also targeting a large area of dense forest in Cameroon’s Littoral region to convert to a palm oil plantation.

A large part of the area at risk is adjacent to the Ebo forest, a proposed national park that is used by forest elephants and many primate species. These include the Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzee sub-species and the rare and endangered drill.

Greenpeace Africa has twice written to Azur asking they detail their plans and allay environmental concerns over the project, but no response has been provided.

Industrial-scale agricultural concessions, many foreign-owned, are often allocated throughout West and Central Africa without proper land-use planning. This frequently generates social conflicts when forest clearance takes place without prior consent of local communities.

This can result in severe negative ecological impacts and effects on endangered wildlife species as many concessions overlap with forest areas of high biodiversity value.

Headed to extinction if trends continue

The Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzee is one of the most endangered primates in the world and faces numerous threats including destruction of habitat from illegal logging, poaching, the bush meat trade and the effects of climate change.

The drill is a rare ape and 80% of the world’s remaining population is in Cameroon and Azur’s plantation project may lead to even more habitat destruction of this already endangered primate

“Governments need to urgently develop a participatory land use planning process prior to the allocation of industrial concessions”, said Filip Verbelen, a senior forest campaigner with Greenpeace Belgium.

“Projects that are being developed without adequate community consultation and are located in areas of high ecological value should not be allowed to proceed and risk further social conflict and environmental damage.”

The Congo Basin is the world’s second largest rainforested area. Its rich and diverse ecosystem provides food, fresh water, shelter and medicine for tens of millions of people. The conservation of these forests is vital in the fight against climate change but the area is increasing under threat from rising global demand for resources, corruption and poor law enforcement.

EuroParl palm oil vote today promises weak reforms

Meanwhile the drive to clear ever more land for palm oil plantations is being driven in part by the EU’s policy to require 10% of transport fuels to come from ‘renewable’ sources such as ethanol from sugar and vegetable oils.

MEPs today voted to reform EU biofuels policy, placing a 6% cap on their use. However as biofuels now account for 4.7% of transport fuel in the EU, this will still drive an increase in their use, and the associated deforestation.

They also voted to require an account to be made of biofuels’ full impact on climate change – but decided to wait five years before it happens, until 2020!

Kenneth Richter, biofuels campaigner at Friends of the Earth said: “MEPs are right to call for changes to the EU’s disastrous biofuels policy, but the proposed reforms don’t go far enough. Current biofuels policy is destroying forests, sending food prices soaring and may even be causing an increase in climate-changing pollution.”

 

 

Satellite images: Forest Cover Change Assessment.

 

 




390643

Palm oil wiping out Africa’s great ape rainforests Updated for 2026

Leave a reply




Satellite images obtained by Greenpeace Africa show that more than 3,000 hectares of rainforest bordering the Dja Faunal Reserve in Cameroon’s Southern region have been destroyed.

The cleared forest, until now home to western lowland gorillas, chimpanzees and mandrills, lies inside the Chinese-owned Hevea Sud rubber and palm oil concession.

The land was granted to the company even though it lies next to Dja Faunal Reserve, which is designated a UNESCO World Heritage site. The plantation lies in the home district of Cameroonian president Paul Biya.

UNESCO has previously requested for an inspection to be carried out to assess if any damage has been done to the Dja reserve, but permission was denied by local authorities.

“If proactive strategies to mitigate the effects of large-scale habitat conversion are not soon implemented, we can expect a rapid decline in African primate diversity”, said Dr Joshua Linder, an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at James Madison University.

“Agro-industrial developments will soon emerge as a top threat to biodiversity in the African tropical forest zone.”

A growing trend of agro-destruction

The forest clearance is significantly greater than that carried out by US company Herakles Farms for their palm oil project in the country’s South West region that has also deforested vital wildlife habitat and deprived local communities of the forest they depend on for their livelihoods.

A Greenpeace Africa investigation in December revealed that Cameroonian company Azur is also targeting a large area of dense forest in Cameroon’s Littoral region to convert to a palm oil plantation.

A large part of the area at risk is adjacent to the Ebo forest, a proposed national park that is used by forest elephants and many primate species. These include the Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzee sub-species and the rare and endangered drill.

Greenpeace Africa has twice written to Azur asking they detail their plans and allay environmental concerns over the project, but no response has been provided.

Industrial-scale agricultural concessions, many foreign-owned, are often allocated throughout West and Central Africa without proper land-use planning. This frequently generates social conflicts when forest clearance takes place without prior consent of local communities.

This can result in severe negative ecological impacts and effects on endangered wildlife species as many concessions overlap with forest areas of high biodiversity value.

Headed to extinction if trends continue

The Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzee is one of the most endangered primates in the world and faces numerous threats including destruction of habitat from illegal logging, poaching, the bush meat trade and the effects of climate change.

The drill is a rare ape and 80% of the world’s remaining population is in Cameroon and Azur’s plantation project may lead to even more habitat destruction of this already endangered primate

“Governments need to urgently develop a participatory land use planning process prior to the allocation of industrial concessions”, said Filip Verbelen, a senior forest campaigner with Greenpeace Belgium.

“Projects that are being developed without adequate community consultation and are located in areas of high ecological value should not be allowed to proceed and risk further social conflict and environmental damage.”

The Congo Basin is the world’s second largest rainforested area. Its rich and diverse ecosystem provides food, fresh water, shelter and medicine for tens of millions of people. The conservation of these forests is vital in the fight against climate change but the area is increasing under threat from rising global demand for resources, corruption and poor law enforcement.

EuroParl palm oil vote today promises weak reforms

Meanwhile the drive to clear ever more land for palm oil plantations is being driven in part by the EU’s policy to require 10% of transport fuels to come from ‘renewable’ sources such as ethanol from sugar and vegetable oils.

MEPs today voted to reform EU biofuels policy, placing a 6% cap on their use. However as biofuels now account for 4.7% of transport fuel in the EU, this will still drive an increase in their use, and the associated deforestation.

They also voted to require an account to be made of biofuels’ full impact on climate change – but decided to wait five years before it happens, until 2020!

Kenneth Richter, biofuels campaigner at Friends of the Earth said: “MEPs are right to call for changes to the EU’s disastrous biofuels policy, but the proposed reforms don’t go far enough. Current biofuels policy is destroying forests, sending food prices soaring and may even be causing an increase in climate-changing pollution.”

 

 

Satellite images: Forest Cover Change Assessment.

 

 




390643

Palm oil wiping out Africa’s great ape rainforests Updated for 2026

Leave a reply




Satellite images obtained by Greenpeace Africa show that more than 3,000 hectares of rainforest bordering the Dja Faunal Reserve in Cameroon’s Southern region have been destroyed.

The cleared forest, until now home to western lowland gorillas, chimpanzees and mandrills, lies inside the Chinese-owned Hevea Sud rubber and palm oil concession.

The land was granted to the company even though it lies next to Dja Faunal Reserve, which is designated a UNESCO World Heritage site. The plantation lies in the home district of Cameroonian president Paul Biya.

UNESCO has previously requested for an inspection to be carried out to assess if any damage has been done to the Dja reserve, but permission was denied by local authorities.

“If proactive strategies to mitigate the effects of large-scale habitat conversion are not soon implemented, we can expect a rapid decline in African primate diversity”, said Dr Joshua Linder, an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at James Madison University.

“Agro-industrial developments will soon emerge as a top threat to biodiversity in the African tropical forest zone.”

A growing trend of agro-destruction

The forest clearance is significantly greater than that carried out by US company Herakles Farms for their palm oil project in the country’s South West region that has also deforested vital wildlife habitat and deprived local communities of the forest they depend on for their livelihoods.

A Greenpeace Africa investigation in December revealed that Cameroonian company Azur is also targeting a large area of dense forest in Cameroon’s Littoral region to convert to a palm oil plantation.

A large part of the area at risk is adjacent to the Ebo forest, a proposed national park that is used by forest elephants and many primate species. These include the Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzee sub-species and the rare and endangered drill.

Greenpeace Africa has twice written to Azur asking they detail their plans and allay environmental concerns over the project, but no response has been provided.

Industrial-scale agricultural concessions, many foreign-owned, are often allocated throughout West and Central Africa without proper land-use planning. This frequently generates social conflicts when forest clearance takes place without prior consent of local communities.

This can result in severe negative ecological impacts and effects on endangered wildlife species as many concessions overlap with forest areas of high biodiversity value.

Headed to extinction if trends continue

The Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzee is one of the most endangered primates in the world and faces numerous threats including destruction of habitat from illegal logging, poaching, the bush meat trade and the effects of climate change.

The drill is a rare ape and 80% of the world’s remaining population is in Cameroon and Azur’s plantation project may lead to even more habitat destruction of this already endangered primate

“Governments need to urgently develop a participatory land use planning process prior to the allocation of industrial concessions”, said Filip Verbelen, a senior forest campaigner with Greenpeace Belgium.

“Projects that are being developed without adequate community consultation and are located in areas of high ecological value should not be allowed to proceed and risk further social conflict and environmental damage.”

The Congo Basin is the world’s second largest rainforested area. Its rich and diverse ecosystem provides food, fresh water, shelter and medicine for tens of millions of people. The conservation of these forests is vital in the fight against climate change but the area is increasing under threat from rising global demand for resources, corruption and poor law enforcement.

EuroParl palm oil vote today promises weak reforms

Meanwhile the drive to clear ever more land for palm oil plantations is being driven in part by the EU’s policy to require 10% of transport fuels to come from ‘renewable’ sources such as ethanol from sugar and vegetable oils.

MEPs today voted to reform EU biofuels policy, placing a 6% cap on their use. However as biofuels now account for 4.7% of transport fuel in the EU, this will still drive an increase in their use, and the associated deforestation.

They also voted to require an account to be made of biofuels’ full impact on climate change – but decided to wait five years before it happens, until 2020!

Kenneth Richter, biofuels campaigner at Friends of the Earth said: “MEPs are right to call for changes to the EU’s disastrous biofuels policy, but the proposed reforms don’t go far enough. Current biofuels policy is destroying forests, sending food prices soaring and may even be causing an increase in climate-changing pollution.”

 

 

Satellite images: Forest Cover Change Assessment.

 

 




390643

Palm oil wiping out Africa’s great ape rainforests Updated for 2026

Leave a reply




Satellite images obtained by Greenpeace Africa show that more than 3,000 hectares of rainforest bordering the Dja Faunal Reserve in Cameroon’s Southern region have been destroyed.

The cleared forest, until now home to western lowland gorillas, chimpanzees and mandrills, lies inside the Chinese-owned Hevea Sud rubber and palm oil concession.

The land was granted to the company even though it lies next to Dja Faunal Reserve, which is designated a UNESCO World Heritage site. The plantation lies in the home district of Cameroonian president Paul Biya.

UNESCO has previously requested for an inspection to be carried out to assess if any damage has been done to the Dja reserve, but permission was denied by local authorities.

“If proactive strategies to mitigate the effects of large-scale habitat conversion are not soon implemented, we can expect a rapid decline in African primate diversity”, said Dr Joshua Linder, an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at James Madison University.

“Agro-industrial developments will soon emerge as a top threat to biodiversity in the African tropical forest zone.”

A growing trend of agro-destruction

The forest clearance is significantly greater than that carried out by US company Herakles Farms for their palm oil project in the country’s South West region that has also deforested vital wildlife habitat and deprived local communities of the forest they depend on for their livelihoods.

A Greenpeace Africa investigation in December revealed that Cameroonian company Azur is also targeting a large area of dense forest in Cameroon’s Littoral region to convert to a palm oil plantation.

A large part of the area at risk is adjacent to the Ebo forest, a proposed national park that is used by forest elephants and many primate species. These include the Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzee sub-species and the rare and endangered drill.

Greenpeace Africa has twice written to Azur asking they detail their plans and allay environmental concerns over the project, but no response has been provided.

Industrial-scale agricultural concessions, many foreign-owned, are often allocated throughout West and Central Africa without proper land-use planning. This frequently generates social conflicts when forest clearance takes place without prior consent of local communities.

This can result in severe negative ecological impacts and effects on endangered wildlife species as many concessions overlap with forest areas of high biodiversity value.

Headed to extinction if trends continue

The Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzee is one of the most endangered primates in the world and faces numerous threats including destruction of habitat from illegal logging, poaching, the bush meat trade and the effects of climate change.

The drill is a rare ape and 80% of the world’s remaining population is in Cameroon and Azur’s plantation project may lead to even more habitat destruction of this already endangered primate

“Governments need to urgently develop a participatory land use planning process prior to the allocation of industrial concessions”, said Filip Verbelen, a senior forest campaigner with Greenpeace Belgium.

“Projects that are being developed without adequate community consultation and are located in areas of high ecological value should not be allowed to proceed and risk further social conflict and environmental damage.”

The Congo Basin is the world’s second largest rainforested area. Its rich and diverse ecosystem provides food, fresh water, shelter and medicine for tens of millions of people. The conservation of these forests is vital in the fight against climate change but the area is increasing under threat from rising global demand for resources, corruption and poor law enforcement.

EuroParl palm oil vote today promises weak reforms

Meanwhile the drive to clear ever more land for palm oil plantations is being driven in part by the EU’s policy to require 10% of transport fuels to come from ‘renewable’ sources such as ethanol from sugar and vegetable oils.

MEPs today voted to reform EU biofuels policy, placing a 6% cap on their use. However as biofuels now account for 4.7% of transport fuel in the EU, this will still drive an increase in their use, and the associated deforestation.

They also voted to require an account to be made of biofuels’ full impact on climate change – but decided to wait five years before it happens, until 2020!

Kenneth Richter, biofuels campaigner at Friends of the Earth said: “MEPs are right to call for changes to the EU’s disastrous biofuels policy, but the proposed reforms don’t go far enough. Current biofuels policy is destroying forests, sending food prices soaring and may even be causing an increase in climate-changing pollution.”

 

 

Satellite images: Forest Cover Change Assessment.

 

 




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1.5 million solar lamps brighten Africa’s future Updated for 2026

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Many of the 600 million people who are still without electricity in Africa rely on home-made kerosene lamps for lighting – putting themselves in danger from fire, toxic black smoke, and eye damage.

But cheaper solar technology is being offered that can provide long-lasting light and additional power to charge telephones and other electric devices, without the need for an electricity grid connection.

The campaign to eliminate the kerosene lamp was begun by SolarAid, an international charity that seeks to combat poverty and climate change and whose declared goal is to “eradicate the kerosene lamp from Africa by 2020”.

It set up an African network to sell these devices in 2006, with the aim that every kerosene lamp will be replaced with solar power by the end of the decade. So far, with over 1.5 million solar lights sold, about 9 million people have benefited from its scheme.

Saves up to 15% of family income, reduces emissions

The charity says that a solar lamp saves money because buying kerosene or candles uses 10-15% of family income, about $70 per year, whereas a solar kit bought for as little as $10 produces light for more than five years.

The risk of a kerosene fire is also removed, along with the indoor air pollution, and the lamps allow children to study at night. A typical family’s use of kerosene lamps causes emissions of 300kg of carbon dioxide a year – now an easily avoided contribution to climate change.

In 2006 SolarAid set up SunnyMoney, a social enterprise that sells the lights via school networks and local businesses – and has grown to become Africa’s biggest solar lights distributor, while also inspiring dozens of other solar businesses addressing domestic and commercial markets.

Selling the lights, rather than donating them, keeps money in local communities, provides employment, and allows the profits to be ploughed back into extending the scheme.

“One of our main objectives is to catalyse solar markets, so we welcome the competition”, says Susie Wheeldon of Solar Aid. “Together we are all helping to make Africa’s solar revolution happen – and eliminate dirty, dangerous, expensive kerosene lamps!”

In 2009 under 1% of Africa’s population was using modern solar lighting with LEDs, and that figure has now risen to about 5%. SolarAid’s own network grew by 81% from 2013-2014 – a near doubling.

“Our ambition is to develop partnerships, grow our network and ultimately get solar lighting to 100% of the African market. If the solar market doubles every year that will be achieved by 2030 – but we want to go even faster that that and hit the goal a decade earlier”

Currently, the organisation has East Africa networks in Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, Zambia and Uganda, where over 80% of people have no access to electricity, and is expanding to adjoining countries.

There are a range of lights and chargers offered from a variety of manufacturers, each with a two-year replacement warranty and up to five years battery life.

The cheapest, at $10, is a study light that gives four hours of bright light after a day’s charge, while the more expensive models offer light for up to 100 hours, charging for up to two phones at a time, and radio charging. The most expensive, which cost around $140, are designed for small businesses.

Even oil companies are selling solar lights now!

SolarAid began life in 2006 when the British company SolarCentury, one of Europe’s leading solar companies, began donating 5% of its profits to the charity. SolarCentury’s founder, Jeremy Leggett, says that the charity benefited by £28,000 in 2006, but the company’s increased profits mean that the figure will be nearly £500,000 this year.

“We were the first in the field back then, but now there are many solar lights of all kinds on the market”, Leggett says. “Most of them very good, although there are some ghastly cheap products that do not last, which can harm solar’s reputation.”

He says the company donations had been matched with other corporate and government aid. Ironically, even Total, the oil company, is now selling solar lights at its petrol stations.

Leggett believes that the market is growing so fast that there is a good chance of SolarAid reaching its goal of getting rid of all kerosene lighting in Africa by 2020.

He is hoping to build on his idea of donating 5% of corporate profits to climate change and poverty alleviation charities, and is launching a ‘5% club’ of enlightened businesses prepared to do the same.

“Most companies would not miss 5% of their profits, and the gains are enormous”, he says. “In my company, the programme is a great favourite with staff and gives everyone a feel good factor. Compared with other similar companies, we retain staff longer because they feel their work is more worthwhile.”

 

 

Paul Brown writes for Climate News Network.

Oliver Tickell edits The Ecologist.

 




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Marine Protected Areas in South Africa – ocean grabbing by another name Updated for 2026

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“This marine area is protected for your benefit”, reads a signpost on the beach of a once thriving small-scale fishing community in Langebaan, Western Cape in South Africa.

It is now known as Langebaan Lagoon Marine Protected Area (MPA). Whose benefit, one might ask? Where there used to be a bustling market filled with the pungent smells of fresh daily catches reeled in by local fisherfolk, the beaches are now lined with unoccupied holiday homes and exclusive restaurants.

The closest you can get to buying a fish is a cellophane-wrapped one in the aisles of the chain supermarket in town.

As part of the World Forum of Fisher Peoples’ General Assembly in September 2014, fisherfolk from around the world visited the Langebaan Lagoon MPA.

Enraged and yet with some sad familiarity, they listened to the disheartening tale of one former fisherman who explained how the MPA and the following ban on fishing had dispossessed his community.

It had not only destroyed his livelihood, but the very cultural DNA of his community that had fished for generations on this coast.

Prior informed consent? In your dreams …

The MPA in Langebaan is just one of the many controversial MPAs in South Africa that have been enforced by the government in cooperation with international environmental NGOs without any prior consultation with local communities.

Or rather as the chair of the South African fisher peoples’ movement calls it, “consultation at gun point” – referring to the several fishers that have been shot, one fatally, by MPA guards mandated to keep local people out of the marine sanctuaries.

Marine parks, along coastal sanctuaries and reserves that establish ‘no-take’ zones – commonly referred to as Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) have become the dominant approach, not just in South Africa but worldwide, for dealing with overfishing, pollution and habitat destruction.

One of the main advocates of MPAs is the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature), who held their World Parks Congress in Sydney in mid-November 2014. They advocate the target of conserving 30% of the world’s coastal and marine areas by 2020, going further than the 10% set by the UN Convention on Biological Diversity.

Naseegh Jaffer, the Secretary General of the World Forum of Fisher People was one of the few delegates at the IUCN congress who represents small-scale fishers. Jaffer warned:

“The term ‘conservation’ carries a negative connotation for millions of local fisher folks across the world, as it means that we have to give up on most of our livelihoods and income from fishing while we draw no benefit from conservation efforts.”

The Congress officially pronounced “a decade of conservation success”. But as Jaffer asks: “a success for whom?”

Depriving small-scale fishers of their livelihoods

While the idea of protecting marine resources at a time of chronic environmental destruction may seem commendable, documented experiences from South Africa, Tanzania, India, Thailand, the Philippines, India, Mexico and elsewhere, have shown that MPAs end up excluding small-scale fishers and depriving them of their livelihoods.

In fact MPAs, along with the spread of market-based policies that favour industrial-scale fisheries, is one of the major contributors to a wave of ocean grabbing that may even surpass the scale of the more oft-reported global land grab.

Moreover, even judged by narrow conservation objectives, there are questions about the success of MPAs. In the preface to their recent anthology on MPAs, marine biologists Johnson and Sandell argue that there is a

” … lack of science underpinning the development of MPAs, a lack of clear objectives or indicators monitoring performance”, and a “lack of ongoing study or biological monitoring in the areas after they have been established on paper.”

This should not be a cause for surprise, because biodiversity conservation is rarely an end in itself. Rather, Marine Parks are usually established as part of wider schemes and strategies by powerful state and corporate actors keen to obscure more damaging activities with a little bluewash gloss.

Political cover for intensive resource exploitation

Langebaan is an all-too typical example of a fishing community dispossessed of its coastline, which is subsequently developed for foreign-owned tourism.

In some cases, MPAs provide governments the political cover for extracting more natural resources elsewhere.

Kiribati Islands’ Phoenix Islands Protected Area in Central Pacific waters, showcased at the IUCN Congress, for example, was created after the government secured US$5 million from a foundation and, more importantly, a large concession for deep-sea mining in the Pacific Ocean’s Clarion-Clipperton seabed zone.

The MPAs of Kiribati and Langebaan sadly show the increasingly muddied waters of conservation today – one in which governments, big business and a few large environmental NGOs, including WWF and Conservation International, point the finger at the beautiful signs portraying a new marine reserve – hoping we won’t notice either the fisherfolk that previously lived there or the destruction of our oceans by industrial fisheries and deep-sea mining elsewhere.

That is why today, on World Fisheries Day, fisher peoples and their allies are taking to the streets and beaches to fight for their human rights and against ocean grabbing, calling on our support for a truly sustainable environment, one which supports people and marine life.

Among them are the women of Kwa-Zulu Natal who released this powerful statement today – declaring not their opposition to MPAs as such, but their rights to be consulted, to regulate their own resources, to benefit from tourism, and not to be treated as criminals by those who stole their lands and waters.

South African fisher women’s statement on ocean grabbing

“We, the women of Kwa-Zulu Natal need access to mussels to feed our families and make some money. We need business skills and access to markets. If there is a Marine Protected Area on our coastline, we want to benefit.

“We women want to regulate our own resources. We the women of Kwa-Zulu Natal face a double oppression: oppression from ocean grabbing and oppression from patriarchy.We need this to change. We need platforms to be heard.

“We the women of Eastern Cape want control over our resources. Our traditional healers need access and control over resources. We want co-management with authorities. Profits from tourism should be made by us.

“We the women of the Western Cape and Northern say NO to Marine Protected Areas without consultation processes. Ocean grabbing breaks down our families. Our men have to travel far to the coast keeping them apart from their children and their wives. We women reject mining on our coastal lands.

“We do not want weapon testing in our waters. Ocean grabbing projects us as criminals in our own ocean and along our own coastline. We need to be informed about the policies that govern our seas. We need to be equipped to deal with ocean grabbing.

“WE THE WOMEN OF SOUTH AFRICA SAY NO TO OCEAN GRABBING. PROTECT OUR LIVELIHOODS. RESTORE OUR DIGNITY.”

 

 

Mads Christian Barbesgaard is chairman of political affairs at Africa Contact in Denmark (www.afrika.dk) a solidarity organisation that supports social movements in their struggle for social, economic and political rights.

Carsten Pedersen is a policy officer at Masifundise, based in South Africa, which works closely with small-scale fishers in South Africa and worldwide. He also works with the World Forum of Fisher Peoples, which has its international secretarial base at Masifundise.

Timothé Feodoroff is a researcher in  Transnational Institute’s Agrarian Justice programme and a graduate in Agricultural and Rural Development Studies from the Institute of Social Studies (The Hague).

The book: ‘The Global Ocean Grab: A Primer‘ is published by the Transnational Institute – free PDF.

Also on The Ecologist

 




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Oil palm explosion driving West Africa’s Ebola outbreak Updated for 2026

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The growing Ebola virus outbreak not only highlights the tragedy enveloping the areas most affected but also offers a commentary on they way in which the political ecology in West Africa has allowed this disease to become established.

The narrative goes that the virus appeared spontaneously in the forest villages of Guinea in December 2013. But this is debatable given that there is evidence of antibodies the Ebola virus in human blood from Sierra Leone up to five years before.

Previously only one case of Ebola had been reported in the region, and it was the Ivory Coast strain of the virus. The strain detected in the blood samples is of the more virulent Zaire strain of Ebola, the same strain responsible for the current epidemic.

After months of very little concerted action it’s clear that the disease is now seriously in danger of spreading out of control.

The real drivers of Ebola in West Africa – poverty and oil palm

The global health community has declared it a crisis of international importance, which has led the host nations to implement draconian preventions strategies, tantamount in some places to martial law in terms of surveillance, quarantine, border controls and other logistical aspects of control. But this is too little, too late.

There are several mechanisms through which the virus may have emerged, and it is unlikely that this latest outbreak was spontaneous.

It is poverty that drives villagers to encroach further into the forest, where they become infected with the virus when hunting and butchering wildlife, or through contact with body fluids from bats – this has been seen with Nipah, another dangerous virus associated with bats.

The likelihood of infection in this manner is compounded by inadequate rural health facilities and poor village infrastructure, compounded by the disorganised urban sprawl at the fringes of cities.

The virus then spreads in a wave of fear and panic, ill-conceived intervention and logistical failures – including even insufficient food or beds for the severely ill.

Take for example the global palm oil industry, where a similar trend of deep-cutting into forests for agricultural development has breached natural barriers to the evolution and spread of specific pathogens.

The effects of land grabs and the focus on certain fruit crop species leads to an Allee effect, where sudden changes in one ecological element causes the mechanisms for keeping populations – bats in this case – and viruses in equilibrium to shift, increasing the probability of spill over to alternative hosts.

Palm oil’s relentless march at the expense of forests and health

This is not unheard of; the introduction of fruit tree crops in cleared forests and agricultural expansion in Malaysia was associated with the emergence of Nipah virus. Bats feeding on fruit trees infected pigs in pens, which provided a vector for the virus to humans.

Another example is with vector-borne diseases such as the Japanese Encephalitis, a virus carried by wild birds which expanded its range due to growing rice and pig farming.

Chikungunya and Dengue Fever viruses exploited deforestation for secondary epidemiological cycles, which increased at the forest edge until the virus was able to adapt to secondary hosts and expand globally.

Certainly the complexity of the agro-ecological changes in West Africa warrant scrutiny. Guinea’s new agriculture is in an early stage of development, identified by the World Bank as the highest investment potential for industrial agriculture.

As global markets shift – and tariffs and taxes on multinational companies are removed, farmers with small land holdings are faced with a choice: either sell off or scale up to meet the competition. Forests are one of the first casualties.

A breakdown of traditional governance

Alongside this subtle effect is the dismantling of traditional governance, violence under colonial, neo-colonial and more recent kleptocratic governments and the economic movements of people towards urbanisation.

Such turbulence, poverty, the influx of refugees from neighbouring wars and crumbling health systems have all created an ecosystem in which the natural friction that prevents Ebola from gathering pathogenic momentum has been all but eroded.

Any international response can do little to remedy these contributing factors. In fact the response has been little more than a recognition of the complete failure of neo-liberal development strategies to contain the virus.

The ‘success’ of the Ebola virus is fundamentally based on the sociological factors and population biology of those it infects. But the data required to test the hypothesis – detailed records about what people eat, where they go and how they interact – is presently unavailable.

Instead research has focused on virus hunting, and with little success: more than 40,000 samples have not yet conclusively determined where the natural reservoir of Ebola lies.

All the while, the socio-ecological factors that are critical to the spread of any disease are ignored.

 

 

The report: ‘Did Ebola emerge in West Africa by a policy-driven phase change in agroecology?’ is published in Environment and Planning.

Richard Kock is Professor of Wildlife Health and Emerging Diseases at the Royal Veterinary College. He received funding from DFID to explore gaps and opportunities in the treatment or prevention of zoonoses in emerging livestock systems. Funding is current from EU through BBSRC on an emerging livestock viral disease in Africa – specifically PPR virus in wildlife populations.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

 

 




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