EU biofuels policy fuelling land grabs

But ActionAid has now brought to his attention a report showing land that is at risk of being grabbed in Kenya to meet increased demand for biofuels due to EU renewable energy targets. 

This report was launched at a debate in the European Parliament on 3rd May, hosted by MEPs Linda McAvan (Environment Committee) and Birgit Schneiber-Jastram (Development Committee and Parliament's Standing Rapporteur on Policy Coherence for Development).

David Barissa from ActionAid Kenya participated in the debate, showing how plans by an Italian biofuels company to grow biofuels for the European market were threatening peoples' land rights and the biodiversity-rich woodlands.

Back in 2009, EU leaders agreed a policy under which 20% of the EU’s energy must come from renewable sources by 2020 – including a 10% target for the transport sector.

Most countries have chosen first generation biofuels to meet the majority of this target but they do not have enough land in their own countries to grow them. This is increasingly fuelling outbreaks of land grabbing across Africa, Asia and South America, with European companies snapping up land to meet EU biofuels demands.

In Kenya, an Italian company, Nuove Iniziative Industriali, is seeking permission for a 50,000 hectare jatropha biofuels plantation on land in the Dakatcha Woodlands.

But the company has been instructed by the Kenyan Environment Ministry to start with a smaller pilot project due to concerns over the potential impacts of the plantation.

The land is home to over 20,000 people who have lived there for hundreds of years and make their livings by farming small plots of land just outside the woodland area.

It is also an important biodiversity hotspot and home to rare plant and animal species.

Local residents say that they were not consulted about the project, which if approved by the Kenyan authorities, will mean they lose their homes and land.

Instead, they are faced with losing everything, all to grow an allegedly green fuel – that a recent study by ActionAid and Birdlife Europe showed would produce up to 6 times more carbon emissions than normal fossil fuels – much of which is ear-marked for export to Europe.

David was joined on the panel by Serah Munguti from Nature Kenya, Hans van Steen from DG Energy, Susie Wilks from Client Earth and Ariel Brunner from Birdlife Europe, to discuss the impact of the EU’s renewable energy policies.

The panel discussion was followed by a lively debate with questions from the range of stakeholders present – including Luciano Orlandi, owner of Nuove Iniziative Industriali.

ActionAid made it clear that companies like Nuove Iniziative Industriali are not the targets of its campaigning. Instead, we are campaigning against the use of industrial biofuels to meet targets set by the Renewable Energy Directive.

These targets are driving massive land acquisitions to produce biofuels and putting poor peoples' rights at risk.

We support the EU's aim of promoting the use of renewable energy. But we don’t think the EU’s energy needs should take priority over the local community’s right to live in the Dakatcha Woodlands and farm their own land as they have done for hundreds of years.

Unless changed, the EU’s policy will continue to cause massive land grabs across Africa.