In January 2010, the people of Malindi, on Kenya’s Indian Ocean were woken up by smoke and the sound of bulldozers coming from the Dakatcha forest.
That was how they learnt that 50,000 hectares of the land held in trust by the community and upon which they are dependent for their livelihoods had been handed over to an Italian company to produce a biofuel crop, Jatropha.
ActionAid Kenya has that twenty thousand people could be displaced and the ecological balance of the region will be severely threatened.
Sing and dance at the World Food Day rally © Riccardo Gangale/ActionAid
Their plight is emblematic of a growing global problem: The EU and US legal targets for biofuel production has led to ‘land grabbing’ throughout the developing world. Land that could be used to feed hungry people, is now putting fuel in the engines of the rich world.
Land has become the new gold and farming communities are being displaced in alarming numbers as large multinationals rush to acquire land for biofuels with little or no consultation or compensation of the local population.
The people of Malindi were not sufficiently consulted, most communities learnt of the deal on the morning the bulldozers moved in. It has taken continuous pressure by civil society groups even to discover the terms of the lease: the land will be leased for 33 years at a cost of 2 euros per hectare.
Biofuels, hunger and climate change:
The main reason given for this headlong rush into industrial biofuel production is that it is a way of tackling climate change; instead of burning oil or gas we can simply burn plants. However, the scientific evidence now points to the fact that industrial biofuels will be even worse for the climate than the fossil fuels they were designed to replace.
Biofuels cause hunger by pushing up food prices and depriving poor farmers in areas such as Malindi of the land they used to grow food.
It is estimated that 30 million people have already been made hungry by biofuels, while another 260 million have been placed at risk of hunger.
In Malindi, local communities, supported by Kenyan civil society, have been fighting for the Kenyan government to recognise their right to their land. But the battle has become harder and the risk of losing everything is real and imminent.
ActionAid Kenya is now calling for international solidarity to defend the people of Malindi’s right to their own land and to prevent the destruction of the Dakatcha woodlands. Peuples Solidaires, ActionAid’s French associate, is putting up a petition on its website to support them.
Please send an email to the John Michuki, Kenya’s Minister for Environment and Mineral Resources, and other ministries:
