With several Gigafactories planned to be built over the coming decade, Norway is taking strides in the battery business. The country’s new ‘industrial adventure’ is promising a ‘green’ and ‘sustainable’ form of economic value creation, bringing jobs and innovation. However, batteries depend on minerals, such as lithium, which are extracted abroad. Therefore, it is important to inquire on what material basis the emerging industry is built, and with what consequences beyond our borders.

Norwegian battery visions

In the past months, electric vehicle (EV) batteries have received enormous attention in Norway – not only due to the country’s high percentage of fossil-free cars on the roads. Several companies are developing factories to produce the world’s ‘greenest’ battery cells, primarily based on lithium-ion technology.

After a new large-scale battery project was announced last December, the national broadcaster NRK reported that potential hosts were “queuing to become battery-municipalities”. The world’s largest aluminum producer Hydro, the state-owned former oil and gas – now energy – company Equinor and Panasonic initiated a battery partnership. Their so-called Joint Battery Initiative is looking for a suitable location for their plants – 82 municipalities across the country have applied to host it.

In the meantime, three other projects aspire to deliver lithium-ion batteries within half a decade. One of them is in Mo i Rana, an industrial town just below the arctic circle. Freyr, which recently got listed on the New York Stock Exchange, is constructing four battery plants with up to 43 GWh capacity by 2025. These factories could produce cells for up to 800’000 electric cars a year. The Rana municipality is optimistic: Expecting 1500 new jobs, it bought shares in Freyr worth 10 million NOK last year, and is even considering to build a new airport.

The new battery industry in Norway promises economic growth, up to 30’000 jobs, regional development and technological innovation. In its latest climate action plan, the government identified industries along the battery supply chain as key to ‘green growth. Battery technology also speaks to desires of mitigating climate change: According to Morten Halleraker, Head of Batteries at Hydro, lithium-ion batteries are “one of the solutions to our generation’s biggest challenges: global warming”.

The initiatives in Norway are in line with the European efforts to ramp up battery production. More importantly, however, batteries and other renewable technologies are envisioned by industry experts to guarantee Norway’s future as an “energy superpower” in light of decreasing demand for fossil fuels. In other words: “Putting its industrial capacity and financial strength to use in the green transition could turn the country from a ‘climate villain’ to a green giant”, a recent UCL policy brief stated.

Even though it remains to be seen how, and if at all, the Norwegian battery dream becomes reality, it is certain that a shift from oil and gas production to renewable energy technology would still depend on forms of extraction. Battery manufacturing relies on vast amounts of minerals such as lithium, which are mostly sourced from abroad.

Critical towards the ‘green’ and ‘responsible’ promise

The battery projects aim to manufacture ‘green’ batteries in Norway. A low carbon footprint is on one hand guaranteed by Norway’s electricity supply – 98 percent of its electricity comes from renewable sources. On the other hand, ‘green’ batteries are understood as being based on low-carbon and responsibly sourced raw materials. For instance, on their website, Freyr declares their intention to develop a ‘green’ value chain and to produce ‘clean’ battery cells made from raw materials “with the lowest possible carbon footprint and socially responsible production”.

The environmental organization Naturvernforbundet (Friends of the Earth Norway) is sceptical towards the emerging battery industry’s promises. The regional sections of the organization in Nordland and Trøndelag raised concerns about how ethical and carbon-neutral sourcing of battery minerals in reality can be, and condemned the industry’s claim to be ‘green’. When the plans for a gigantic battery plant in the North were announced, the Nordland section criticized a possible windmill park accompanying the project and the grand scale of the plans. Yet, with the decreasing relevance of wind energy for Freyr, they showed themselves more supportive. Surprisingly, with the notable exception of Naturvernforbundet, Norwegian civil society has been rather quiet about the new large-scale industrial visions.

The organization is concerned about environmental damage and social problems resulting from the extraction of battery materials, such as nickel, cobalt, graphite, manganese and lithium. For instance, they raise environmental concerns caused by the vast consumption of water and land due to lithium extraction. In the so-called ‘lithium triangle’ in South America, extreme water shortages and increased risks for soil and air contamination are affecting local residents’ livelihoods. Currently, most battery-grade lithium is sourced either from brine in Chile and Argentina, or from hard-rock deposits in Australia. Some lithium projects have been facing strong opposition, as the protests by indigenous activists in Chile amidst the country-wide protests against social inequality exemplify.

The Norwegian Naturverforbundet is not only questioning how, but also on what scale and intensity, the extractive rush for lithium and other battery raw material are taking place. Their criticism is relevant: Phasing out fossil-fuel driven cars – i.e. Norway bans their sale from 2025 – the demand for ‘critical raw materials’ is rising quickly. The latest International Energy Association report, for instance, expects the demand for lithium in batteries to grow 30-fold until 2030 and more than 100-fold by 2050. As a consequence, lithium mining will inevitably increase.

Lithium from Europe?

The European battery sector has been concerned by the Chinese dominance in the lithium supply chain, and by the increasingly important labeling of metals with carbon tags and environment, social and governance (ESG) standards. As a consequence, governments and mining industries are eying new mineral reserves to tap into, in order to secure steady supplies of lithium in the future.

Norway has increased its geological mapping to identify underground resources – including in the deep sea. On land, Norway does not have any economically viable lithium deposits, according to the Norwegian Geological Survey. On the seabed, however, recent expeditions have discovered high concentrations of lithium, amongst other minerals, along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. When, and if at all, these deposits will be ‘harvested’ remains unclear.

In Europe, a number of hard-rock mining projects have been announced in Serbia, Finland, Portugal and Spain. However, Bloomberg Metals analyst Kwasi Ampofo, believes that by 2030, Europe will still have no significant capacity in producing lithium chemicals. Considering that Chinese actors largely control the lithium supply chain, lithium will likely still be shipped across the globe, at least for the first generations of Norwegian batteries. In the future, European mining could lower carbon emissions of European batteries by shortening transport routes, and increase supply security for Norwegian and European battery producers.

Expanding mining of battery raw materials in Europe is strongly supported by the European Union. According to the EU, a ‘reliable, secure, and sustainable access to raw materials is a precondition for Europe’s Green Deal’. Recent efforts to develop battery policies and regulations have implied mandatory supply chain due diligence: The latest proposal for the EU batteries regulation recommends to include lithium in the scope of the supply chain due diligence obligations and requires its sourcing to be sustainable. The Norwegian government will adapt its law accordingly, and has already proposed a new human rights transparency and due diligence regulation. These steps seem to move into a positive direction in terms of responsibility and accountability of lithium sourcing.

Mining projects in Europe, however, have not been less contested than elsewhere. In Spain or Portugal, for instance, people have opposed lithium mining plans in local and national protests. For them, open-pit mines threaten local heritage, natural environments and livelihoods. Local activists and residents in Northern Portugal fear pollution and destruction and in the name of ‘green’ mobility and ‘clean cities’.

Decarbonising (individual) transportation with battery driven EVs is bound to rely on minerals such as lithium. And while increasingly attention is paid to responsible, transparent – and shorter – supply chains, the projected spike in extraction creates ambiguities in perceptions of what ‘green’ and ‘sustainable’ futures are.
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Anna-Sophie Hobi is a PhD Fellow at Noragric. With an interest in themes of energy transition and extractivism, her research focuses on lithium and its role in the futures of Zimbabwe and Norway. Previously, Anna-Sophie worked on transparency and responsibility in the commodity sector as a Mercator Fellow on International Affairs. She studied Social Anthropology and Prehistoric Archaeology at the University of Basel and Linnaeus University.

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This article is also published on the Lithium Worlds website.

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Olav B. Soldal offers his impressions from a trip to Costa Rica earlier this year where he was part of an NMBU field course working with a community struggling to resist the pressures of the dominant pineapple corporation in the region. 

Costa Rica, known to most as a land of lush rainforests and a biodiversity hotspot, is at a crossroads. The country of about 4.9 million people has experienced rapid economic growth and urbanization over the last decades, and is now considered one of the most developed countries in Latin America.

The country is internationally renown for its remarkably peaceful history in a region otherwise marked by violent conflicts and political upheavals, and the abolition of its armed forces in 1949. Since a largely peaceful revolution in 1948, the country has avoided the disruption of democratic due process. Yet today, Costa Rica’s economy is fragile, with government debt at record levels, and political backlash to recent VAT adjustment and growing food prices. In common with other countries in the region, Costa Rica is also feeling the pressure of a changing climate, with longer dry seasons and more extensive forest fires.

Despite ambitious policies on climate action, its role as a world biodiversity hotspot and its efforts to regenerate forests, Costa Rica is struggling to conserve its ecosystems. Agri-business, in the shape of plantation production with the export of tropical produce such as coffee, bananas and pineapple, is the mainstay of the Costa Rican economy. Pineapple now tops the list of the country’s exports, surpassing the historical dominance of bananas. With its economic dependence on this sector, growing pressure is being placed on large swathes of Costa Rica’s rainforest ecosystems. The multinational corporations that hold a firm grip on the country’s primary production sectors are accused of increasingly malign political interventions in order to maintain their favourable conditions. A large proportion of Costa Rica’s lower income population work on the plantations, and politicians tout the importance of the sector for employment opportunities.

Has the pineapple industry become bitter sweet?

There is an inherent contradiction between ecological conservation and expanding plantations in Costa Rica, and the pineapple is at the centre of it all.  As more attention is given to deforestation caused by encroaching plantations, environmental organizations  have been putting increasing pressure on wealthier nations to limit their import of these tropical products. The Costa Rican government has vowed to protect and reforest up to 60% of its land area and reverse the “degradation of marine and terrestrial ecosystems” by 2050. At the same time, it has committed to deliver ‘green growth’ and to stimulate its growing plantation economy. Whilst being a steady source of income and positive to the Costa Rican terms of trade, has the pineapple industry become rather bitter sweet?

Pineapple farming and land-use conflict

In June 2019, I participated in a practicum course jointly run by NMBU, the American University in Washington and the UN Peace University as part of their ongoing cooperation on research-based training. The specific purpose of the fieldtrip was to examine the roots of land use conflict caused by the expansion of pineapple farming in Costa Rica.

Pineapple has become Costa Rica’s largest export crop over a short period. It uses high quantities of pesticides and research has illustrated the negative impacts on ground water and on biodiversity. It encroaches protected and indigenous land and threatens forests. The social conditions of workers as well as those living around the plantations violate human rights (e.g., life, food, water). Pesticides flow into the drinking water surrounding plantations. Workers and community members report health impacts and birth defects.

The focus of our study was the community development association of Longo Mai in southwestern Costa Rica. Through the practicum, we were primarily concerned with providing answers that could be of value to the community and its long-term autonomy, sustainability and development.

I was part of a group of students focused on health issues and environmental impacts related to pineapple production including how pineapple plantations have impacted land-use, ownership and economic opportunities in the region.

Why Longo Mai?

Longo Mai is a small, diverse community in the San Jose region region of Costa Rica, with residents originating from El Salvador, Nicaragua, Switzerland, Germany, and elsewhere in Costa Rica, including some of indigenous heritage. During the 1970’s, there was a great deal of civil unrest throughout Central America, as well as in Pinochet’s Chile. The Somoza family had been running Nicaragua as if it were a business, controlling the majority of the country’s production and export. In 1978, the government of Nicaragua assassinated a conservative party critic named Pedro Juaquin Chamorro resulting in large protests, which were forcefully quashed leading the opposition to take to arms. In 1979, Nicaragua underwent a revolution led by the Sandinista movement against the Somoza regime. El Salvador also experienced a civil war between 1980 and 1992. Salvadoran armed forces committed human rights violations, including a number of massacres during the early 1980’s. It was to this backdrop that the Longo Mai movement in Europe decided to establish a community in Central America in 1979, to create a refuge for those fleeing persecution and civil unrest in the region.

An oasis in a desert of pineapple

Upon arriving in Longo Mai, my first impression was how pristine the nature and landscape was. The built environment blended into the forest, creating a unique, fresh micro-climate  in contrast to the surrounding arid plantation landscape. Our interviews with community members soon revealed, however, that things were far from perfect in paradise.

Environmental contamination and loss of biodiversity

The community had experienced rapid change over the past two decades, mainly due to the ever-expanding plantations in the neighbouring landscape. There was an acute sense of biodiversity loss, perceived risks of harm from pesticides and contamination of aquatic resources. A study the by University of Costa Rica found traces of six different pesticides in the Terraba-Sierpe Wetlands located in the neighbouring municipality. There is also a sense that the ownership and use of the land is changing rapidly, perhaps most acutely in the neighbouring town of Volcán, where most smallholder farmers have sold of their land to large pineapple-plantation companies. Today, there are almost no smallholders left, expect for in Longo Mai, and almost no-one owns the land on which they work.

There is a schism between the generations when it comes to defining what is appropriate land-use and good farming. The older generation has a strong connection to the land and would prefer to work it independently, whilst the younger generation regard the plantation jobs as a good source of income and an important driver of economic development.

The shift to employment-based income has altered the lifestyles and social dynamics among people in the region, and many report an increasing reliance on imported goods. This shift has generated tension over land management, with more community members expressing doubt over land ownership structures as the land-use practices have changed with the generations. There is real concern in the community that the cooperative structure of land management is faltering under ever-increasing pressures from the plantation industry and public authorities.

Our own research indicates that the unique model of land ownership of Longo Mai, where land is collectively held and managed, has protected the community from encroachment by the pineapple company, PINDECO. In contrast to the neighbouring community of Volcán, land has not been sold off to the company, and the pastoralist lifestyle has been maintained. As a result, ecological impacts were seen to be significantly lower in Longo Mai.

Finding common ground

The community of Longo Mai faces a bumpy road ahead. Pressure from the authorities and plantation industry are unlikely to subdue in the near future.

When asked what characterises the identity of Longo Mai today, a common emphasis was placed on cultural pluralism, peace and environmentalism. Topics that represented disagreement amongst the community included tolerance, respect for the elderly, and increased involvement with the pineapple industry. Overall, we found that the values that people associated with the community stemmed from their motivations to move to Longo Mai in the first place; families who had come from situations of war and violence identified peace as the main value of the village and those who came to escape economic hardship emphasized the opportunities available in Longo Mai if one works hard enough.

Regarding aspirations for the future, the theme was largely the same across the community: Better schooling options, including for older children (Longo Mai only has a primary school), more teaching on organic agriculture, more solidarity between groups, and a more representative community leadership (not just Europeans and men, as one interviewee pointed out). Many also voiced concern for alternative economic opportunities, so that youth don’t have to leave the community to make a living.

By the end of our stay, we realized that the community was more or less unified in their desire to identify routes to a greener, healthier future.

I left Longo Mai with the realization that our research had revealed something unexpected. Despite the challenges faced by communities on the margins of pineapple plantations such as Longo Mai, it is still possible to conceive a peaceful and prosperous society, through dialogue and living in harmony with the natural surroundings.

This could be a lesson for the rest of Costa Rica, and indeed the Western hemisphere, as we all strive to find a balance between economic and ecological sustainability. While Costa Rica is a highly developed and peaceful part of a largely troubled region, it is also a country marked by high levels of inequality, corporate cronyism and political corruption. The Costa Rican rainforest represents one of the world’s greatest biodiversity hotspots – and mitigating global climate change hinges on succeeding in forest conservation. So, before we next indulge in a sweet bite of pineapple, we might first ask if the plantation economy that underpins it is just too hard to swallow.

Olav Soldal is a student on Noragric’s MSc programme in International Environmental Studies.

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Written by Tomohiro Harada, PhD Fellow, Noragric

This last week 30,000 people from across the world gathered at the heart of Europe’s coal mining region to address the biggest threat to humanity: the adverse effects of climate change. During the first week at COP24 in Katowice, I followed the footsteps of Indigenous Peoples at the frontline of diplomacy at the Climate Change Summit. Three years after Paris, the Parties and Indigenous Peoples came to a consensus on the draft text for the operationalization of the Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform (LCIPP). It is the first milestone for the establishment of a partnership between Indigenous Peoples and the Parties under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The agreement offers a glimmer of hope for Indigenous Peoples around the world, who because of their livelihoods are often the first to experience the worst consequences of the radical shifts taking place in the environment. However, as nothing is decided until everything is decided, Indigenous Peoples remain concerned about the declining “Spirit of Paris” as COP24 enters its final rounds of negotiation.

At the frontlines of climate change

Indigenous Peoples are at the frontlines of climate change. From day one of the COP negotiations, Indigenous Peoples Organisations representing their respective communities have participated in the plenaries, informal consultations, side-events and press conferences at the event. They have also been able to enter a dialogue with the COP Presidency on how they are affected by climate change. One indigenous youth representative from the Pacific gave an account of how her community will be under water within her lifetime because of the rising sea level. Another from the Arctic conveyed fear for his life and community as he described how the melting permafrost has made his land increasingly dangerous and unsuitable for traditional use. Youth participation at Climate Change Summits has grown in recent years, and indigenous youths are no exception. At COP24, all these youths argue that their future is at stake and that immediate actions are necessary to address the adverse effects of climate change.

The Indigenous Peoples Caucus at COP, represented by International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change (IIPFCC), is one of the nine constituencies recognised by UNFCCC. There are 370 million Indigenous Peoples across 5,000 nations around the world, each with its own distinct language, culture, and social and political institution apart from mainstream society. They are united by a common cause to address historic inequities that have resulted in their communities being marginalised and victimised. In the context of climate change, Indigenous Peoples do not only stand at the frontline where they are most vulnerable to the changing climate, but they also offer solutions as they guard over 80% of the remaining biodiversity with knowledge and practices specific to their respective environments.  Indigenous Peoples come to COP to make a unique contribution to ensure that climate actions are more effective, inclusive and just.

One of the most important processes for the Indigenous Peoples at COP24 has been to determine a new decision text for the operationalization of the Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples’ Platform. The Paris Agreement and Decision adopted at COP21 in Paris in 2015 (Decision 1/CP.21) acknowledges that “climate change is a common concern of human kind”, and that when the Parties take action to address climate change, they should respect, promote and consider their respective obligation on the rights of indigenous peoples. Having recognised the need to strengthen knowledge, technologies, and practices, the Paris Agreement established LCIPP to enable the exchange of experiences on mitigation and adaptation in a holistic and integrated manner.

At COP23 in Bonn in 2017, it was agreed that the LCIPP will have three main functions:

1. Knowledge: Promoting the exchange of experiences and best practices
2. Capacity building: Enabling local communities’ and indigenous peoples’ engagement in the UNFCC process
3. Climate Change Policies and Actions: Facilitating the integration of diverse knowledge systems

Additionally, COP23 requested the establishment of a facilitative working group (FWG). The decision recommended that the four key principles proposed by Indigenous Peoples Organisations should be taken into account:

1. Full and effective participation of indigenous peoples
2. Equal status of indigenous peoples and Parties, including in leadership roles
3. Self-selection of indigenous peoples representatives in accordance with indigenous peoples’ own procedures
4. Adequate funding from the secretariat and voluntary contributions to enable the functions of LCIPP

I have been following this particular negotiation process, from various informal consultations and workshops in Helsinki in February, to Bonn in May, Cochabamba in October and now to Katowice.         

The Spirit of Talanoa

The negotiation over the establishment of the FGW and operationalization of LCIPP has been a delicate process since the adoption of the Paris Agreement. There has been a great deal of diplomacy in all directions imaginable and Indigenous Peoples have worked in partnership with Parties, forging mutual understanding and respect, and perhaps most importantly in this case, friendship. Since COP23 in Bonn, it became customary for the Parties to invite Indigenous Peoples into the negotiation space and have their representatives participate in the drafting of the text, to ensure that they are part of this consensus building process.

As the days went by, the strict diplomatic protocol that governs Party consultations had given away to what some have called “the spirit of Talanoa”. Storytelling was an important part of this process. In articulating the necessity of the LCIPP and the Indigenous Peoples’ participation in addressing climate change, elders have often shared, in session, their vulnerabilities and how, in partnership with the Parties, their traditional knowledge can contribute to saving Mother Earth. During the break, many Indigenous Peoples, in the presence of several Party representatives, took to the floor to share their music, dance and traditional knowledge. It is important to mention here that, like any other consultation process under UNFCCC, negotiation was both a tough and delicate game. In Bonn in May and in Katowice, many Indigenous Peoples felt that they had reached a seemingly irreconcilable impasse. However, unlike any other Party Consultations, this particular one enabled the equal participation of the Parties and non-Party stakeholders (i.e. Indigenous Peoples), as they shared their stories without apportioning any blame.

It is in this spirit that we saw an evolving relationship among the Parties and Indigenous Peoples in the room. As a result, the notion of “friendly Parties” started to materialize, with more openness and inclusiveness. In Bonn in May, it seemed clear to many Indigenous Peoples which of the Parties posed the greatest challenges to drafting process of LCIPP. China, for instance, insisted that a language of “territorial integrity and political unity of sovereign and independent States” be used in the draft text. This was a  language that was not acceptable to Indigenous Peoples and their supporters, including the EU, Canada and Norway. However, as the consultation continued, I witnessed an increasing interaction between Indigenous Peoples and “non-friendly Parties”. Their respective pains and desires became more contextualised through storytelling; China began to share their vulnerabilities and their vision of LCIPP through storytelling. This not only helped many in the room to understand exactly what their main concerns were, but also showed that China believes its traditional knowledge can contribute to LCIPP. What transpired in Cochabamba and Katowice is a transformative process where “friendship status” is no longer defined by common position, but by openness to dialogue and a prioritisation of inclusiveness. The day after the Indigenous Peoples and the Parties reached consensus on the text, the mood in the Indigenous Caucus was jubilant. Amazingly, in the middle of the Caucus, the Chinese negotiator has now become a friend of the Indigenous Peoples, even connecting through WhatsApp. According to the Indigenous COP veterans, this was an unprecedented event in the history of the Caucus.

The importance of storytelling

We have all learned, through the repeated interventions by Indigenous Peoples, the potential of not only traditional knowledge in addressing the adverse effects of climate change, but also storytelling as a way to relate, share vulnerabilities and potentials, and to build mutual trust and understanding. This unique process enables us to visualise how Indigenous Peoples can transform diplomacy when given the space, rights and recognition to share their stories in their own way. Through this practice, the consultation demonstrated a lot of promise as to what the FWG and LCIPP could be when they are fully operational. By carrying out diplomacy in accordance with the “Spirit of Talanoa” –  the indigenous way of doing diplomacy –  this consultation process was already beginning to perform the functions of the LCIPP.

Erasure of human rights and the rejection of the Special Report

When one zooms out from the LCIPP consultation to the rest of COP, however, a different impression is gained – “Spirit of Paris” and the “Spirit of Talanoa” has gone AWOL. For the last couple of days, we have started to see, one by one, the languages associated with rights-based climate action, including human rights, bracketed and erased from the drafted texts of the agenda items under Paris Rulebook. The weakening of the rights-based approach to climate action also dilutes the effectiveness of LCIPP, being based as it is on a respect for indigenous rights. Another big blow is that the Parties have failed to adopt the IPCC Special Report on 1.5 degrees released this October, following a series of objections mounted by the United States, Russia, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia who jointly refused to welcome the report at the plenary session. It is expected that the proponent Parties of this report will attempt to revive this discussion next week. However, time is running out. Without the IPCC Special Report on 1.5 degrees as a basis for further negotiation, the Paris Rulebook – should it be adopted – is bound to fall far too short of the recommendations of the IPCC Report, as well as the expectations set forth in the Paris Agreement.

So where does this leave the Indigenous Peoples for the remainder of COP24? Indeed, nothing is decided until everything is decided. The adoption of LCIPP still depends entirely on the outcome of the high-level segment, which is set to begin this week. Some see that it is already out of their hands. The conversations are highly technical and political and their resources are thin. An indigenous delegate commented:

Back home… they maybe don’t see climate change in terms of a rulebook. They maybe don’t see climate change in terms of specific little paragraphs with specific wordings… that can absolutely screw you over

Their stories are buried altogether by endless political bickering, an alphabet soup of acronyms, catch phrases and complicated concepts, which are completely devoid of any meaningful connection to those who stand at the frontline of climate change.

But they refuse to remain silent. In the Spirit of Talanoa, they continue to share stories about their mountains, rivers, forests and oceans in their own way and at every opportunity they can find.

The Indigenous Peoples’ fight continues because, as they proclaim, “we are still here”.

I wish to express thanks to Ghazali Ohorella, co-chair of the International Indigenous Peoples’ Forum on Climate Change, and to the many Indigenous Peoples who introduced me to the Caucus in the spirit of openness and friendship.      

Tomohiro Harada is a PhD Fellow at the Department of International Environment and Development Studies, focusing on indigenous diplomacies in global politics, specifically Sami diplomacies in global environmental politics.

The post What happened to the Spirit of Paris? Indigenous Peoples at COP24 in Katowice, Poland appeared first on Noragric blog.

Written by Mikael Bergius, Tor A. Benjaminsen and Mats Widgren. This post is one of a series that will explore the aims and conceptual bases of the Noragric-led Greenmentality project. 

First published in the Greenmentality Blog. 

Since the Rio+20 conference in 2012, the ‘greening’ of growth and economies has been framed as an opportunity for international capital flows to contribute to sustainable development. Critics of the emerging ‘green economy’ have, however, expressed concern about the effects on smallholder livelihoods from a ‘green development’ trajectory focused on ‘modernization’.

This is an emerging scenario in our research on Scandinavian investments within the Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania (SAGCOT) – the main Tanzanian initiative to implement the green economy in the country. At a side event at the Rio+20 conference, the former Tanzanian Minister of State, Terezya Huvisa, promoted SAGCOT as a ‘laboratory for testing and implementing’ green growth.

Three Scandinavian agribusiness investment projects – Kilombero Plantations (KPL), Green Resources and Agro EcoEnergy [1] – which we discuss in a recent paper published in the Journal of Peasant Studies – illustrate some of the stakes, contradictions and contestations involved when a vision of the green economy is implemented in an African country such as Tanzania.

The three projects, all located within the SAGCOT area, are framed within a vision of development that seeks to proliferate a ‘green’ corporate agri-food regime by bringing the technology and expertise of the West to the rest via capital-intensive, large-scale land investments. There is a strong faith among the promoters of these projects in giving the poor a chance to work their way out of poverty.

The SAGCOT initiative echoes the unfolding discourse around the green economy: that a green agro-capitalism can be created that yields a triple-win future – climate mitigation, biodiversity conservation and development. Through the SAGCOT initiative, and in cooperation with aid donors, international development institutions and the private sector, the Tanzanian government aims to implement a certain vision of ‘green modernization’ by establishing clusters of commercial agriculture. Here, green narratives underpin a long-term vision of development where smallholder-based agrarian economies ‘progress’ to industrial agriculture linked to global markets.

The three Scandinavian investments that we have studied demonstrate the power imbalances between investors and local communities. These have led to lack of transparency and insufficient compensation procedures for loss of homes and land, escalating land prices and disputes (also between smallholders), few jobs and low wages for casual labour and unfulfilled promises and expectations in general.

All three projects have received various forms of support over the Norwegian and Swedish aid budgets. This connection between Scandinavian aid and the private sector is not new. However, it was not until the 1990s that this trend gained momentum. Girded by a widely held perception that Scandinavian states, development agencies and businesses are inherently well-intentioned actors promoting peace, human rights, and fair distribution, there has been a strong private turn of Scandinavian aid in recent decades – a trend reinforced by the converging crises in finance and food systems since 2007.

Veiled under a ‘regime of goodness’, Scandinavian states, development agencies and businesses are no different from other powerful actors in the way their land investment practices tend to be blind to the dispossession and social injustice following in their wake. They too want to secure their piece of the alleged ‘untapped potential’ – land, labour and markets – contained in Africa; the ‘final frontier’ for agribusiness capital, according to the World Bank.

All three projects have been subject to debates in the Scandinavian media, in which we have been involved as critics. The responses to our critique represents a powerful narrative on agricultural modernization subscribed to by both investors and their supporters in academia and the development industry. The choice they leave us with is a false one: Either you support large-scale land investments and contribute to development, or you ‘lock people in eternal poverty’ forcing them to ‘live in straw huts’.

Such false choices do not leave much space for alternative ways of thinking. However, it is increasingly evident that alternative ideas about what ‘modernity’ and ‘development’ entails – across the North/South divide – will be vital as we try to stake out truly sustainable futures that meet the needs of both people and ecology. A growing international movement of smallholders in Via Campesina offers valuable alternative visions rooted in agroecology and land reform.

The question is not about whether to invest in agriculture or not, but about critically rethinking social and ecological relationships, and to invest in smallholders in ways that enhance their control over agricultural production, rather than the opposite.

Notes:

[1] In a recent development this project has been closed down. Agro EcoEnergy has filed a case against the Tanzanian government at International Court for the settlement of investment disputes over contract termination.

Follow more blog posts from this project at the Greenmentality webpages.

Mikael Bergius is a PhD Fellow at NMBU’s Department of International Environment and Development Studies, Noragric. Using a food regime perspective, his PhD research is focusing on contemporary agrarian change in Tanzania.

Tor Arve Benjaminsen is a human geographer and Professor at NMBU’s Department of International Environment and Development Studies, Noragric.

Mats Widgren is a Professor Emeritus at Stockholm University’s Department of Human Geography.

The post Expanding large-scale agriculture in the name of the green economy in Tanzania appeared first on Noragric blog.

Written by Jill Tove Buseth, PhD Fellow, Noragric. This post is one of a series that will explore the aims and conceptual bases of the Noragric-led Greenmentality project. 

First published in the Greenmentality Blog. 

Policies increasingly discuss technological and financial aspects of the green transition, particularly in the global North. Less attention has been paid to the ways in which the green economy is being implemented in the global South, as well as to the governance implications of these green transitions. While the green economy in the global North often focuses on technological innovation in the energy sector, the green economy in the global South often infers transformed control over natural resources. Initiatives such as carbon and biodiversity offsetting, REDD+ and wildlife conservation are all examples of this. The green economy is also increasingly merged with investments aiming to increase productivity in the agriculture sector in Africa – also known as the ‘New Green Revolution’ in Africa.

Greenwashing

At 2012’s Rio+20, representatives from the Tanzanian government presented their new ‘laboratory’ for green growth, the Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania (SAGCOT). SAGCOT is a public-private partnership that aims to mobilize 3.5 billion USD in investments, bring 350,000 hectares of land into commercial farming, create 420,000 new jobs, and lift 2 million people out of poverty. The initiative was established in 2010 by the multinational agri-business sector, in particular the Norwegian fertilizer giant Yara, in cooperation with the Tanzanian government and a few aid donors, as an agriculture investment portfolio with the purpose of boosting Tanzania’s agricultural productivity and stimulate economic growth.

The Tanzanian government has proclaimed that SAGCOT is the new, green road to economic growth, poverty reduction and environmental preservation – claims that correspond closely with the triple bottom line of the green economy – and SAGCOT has increasingly postured itself in this way rather than in terms of agricultural investment. In an article recently published in Geoforum, I examine how the green economy discourse and policy at the global level was reinterpreted to fit SAGCOT in its establishment. Simultaneously, SAGCOT was re-shaped to fit the green economy discourse in which it was initiated. I argue that the green economy discourse was ‘grabbed’ as an opportunity to ‘greenwash’ SAGCOT, and that SAGCOT is merely an example of the agri-business sector’s drive towards penetrating the African continent – not inclusive, green growth and poverty reduction for smallholders.

According to several informants in Tanzania, SAGCOT adjusted its branding and re-shaped its policies in order to comply with the prevailing green discourse. In the first policy document from 2011 (called ‘the blueprint’), SAGCOT was primarily presented as an ‘agriculture investment portfolio’. Then in 2012, SAGCOT published a ‘Green Growth Investment Framework.’ This document, called ‘the greenprint’, was supposed to be a landscape analysis, but was presented as a framework for green growth. In 2013, the title was changed to ‘A Vision for Agriculture Green Growth’, removing all traces of the investment focus. In 2017, SAGCOT started using ‘inclusive green growth’ as a baseline for all activities. The content of the policies did not, however, change in accordance with the change of title and branding. This is an example of ‘grabbing green,’ (not to be confused with the more well-known term ‘green grabbing’) which refers to how the environment is being used opportunistically by various actors in their quests for capital accumulation under the auspices of being green. Such grabbing green is both a manifestation of, and a constitutive force in, producing the green economy.

Free to define what ‘green’ means

The New Green Revolution is explicitly different from the green economy, but interestingly, the two are increasingly being merged both discursively and politically under new terms such as ‘agriculture green growth’ and ‘climate smart agriculture’ The triple F crisis of the mid-2000s found a triple P solution in the green economy: people, planet and profit. This has been translated into food, people and profit by, among others, the World Economic Forum (WEF) via their New Vision for Agriculture, launched in 2010. The last decade has seen a wave of agricultural schemes rooted in these ideas, branded under various ‘green growth’ banners. SAGCOT was created within this context, and was especially influenced by the growth narrative in the green economy agenda, which emphasizes that a green economy means utilizing natural resources in order to assure continued economic growth, as proposed particularly by the OECD.

This mixing and merging of ‘green’ concepts is a result of an overall vagueness in the green economy; actors are themselves often free to define what ‘green’ means, and they can thus also easily measure their own success in various green transitions. SAGCOT, and the processes it undertook to become ‘green’, is a good example of this. The consequence of the ‘grabbing green’ and ‘greenwashing’ processes is that SAGCOT has been, and is still being, branded as a different initiative than it is to both donors, policy-makers and the public. ‘Inclusive, green growth’ sells better to more actors than ‘agricultural investment’. Hence, SAGCOT has managed to attract increased attention, partnerships and donor funds from actors that would not normally have been interested in agricultural investments.

During the years 2010- 2015, SAGCOT attracted a considerable number of new partners, including environmentalists and traditional development NGOs, leading to SAGCOT receiving its first big grant in 2016 from the World Bank. This demonstrates how powerful actors managed to distract attention from the initial intentions behind SAGCOT. Outwardly, SAGCOT claims to be creating opportunities for small-scale farmers and Tanzania’s economy and food supply systems at large, but the intrinsic ‘growth’ aspect has taken the lead role in the country’s implementation of the green economy – serving mainly investors – while both inequality reduction and environmental sustainability are, in practice, largely left out.

Follow more blog posts from this project at the Greenmentality webpages.

Jill T. Buseth is a PhD Fellow at NMBU’s Department of International Environment and Development Studies (Noragric). Her research focus is on the green economy/green shift; large-scale land acquisitions/agri-business/rural land use; and environmental discourses and narrative analysis. 

The post Grabbing Green? The institutionalization of the green economy in Tanzania appeared first on Noragric blog.

Written by Shai Divon, Head of Department, Noragric. This post is one of a series that will explore the aims and conceptual bases of the Noragric-led Greenmentality project.

First published in the Greenmentality Blog.

The British philosopher Bertrand Russell recounts in his volume on power a story told by Confucius about a woman he saw wailing by a grave:

“Your wailing”, said he, “is that one who has suffered sorrow on sorrow”. She replied, “This is so. Once my husband’s father was killed here by a tiger. My husband was also killed, and now my son has died in the same way.” The Master said, “why do you not leave this place?”. The answer was “There is no oppressive government here.” The Master then said, “Remember this my children, oppressive government is more terrible than Tigers”. (quoted in Russell 2004 [1938], 224.)

Interactions between humans and ‘nature’

This story epitomizes the complicated ecological interactions between humans and ‘nature’, as well as the added complexity occurring through the politics of ‘nature’. Studies of such political ecologies have documented the human dimensions of landscapes through tensions that occur when politics restricts the sense of embeddedness that people have towards their ‘nature’. These tensions are expressed through the application of asymmetric power, which is then resisted by acts of disobedience.

In the context of political ecology, more often than not, projections of power encounter the recalcitrant qualities of both humans and ‘nature’ (Scott, 2012: 37). If we observe natural phenomena through the laws of physics, we see that when power moves objects against each other, the friction generates resistance. In classical physics these phenomena are predictable and quantifiable. In the social world, the action/reaction associated with a variety of projections of power cannot be reduced and explained by formulas. Acts of disobedience in reaction to a projection of power are in effect the social analogue of physical resistance in the sense that resistance is bound to occur against power.

As documented by countless examples, when power is projected by humans upon other humans (and in many cases upon ‘nature’), various forms of resistance manifest. Humans deploy a range of strategies and tactics, as well as a variety of tools to resist power. The observations and attempted categorization of the vast range of resistance options and their deployment by victims of dominating power has been the subject of many studies. The short discussion below bridges two conceptualization of resistance, visible and invisible/hidden resistance, both highly relevant to the political ecology context of the Greenmentality project.

One way of categorizing resistance is based on observable recalcitrancy, in the sense that both the projector of power as well as a detached observer may detect the acts of resistance. Such strategies of resistance include: nonviolent, militant, discursive and formal-legal action (Cavanagh and Benjaminsen 2015, 727). Another form of resistance is described through the Ethiopian proverb quoted by Scott in the beginning of his study on ‘Hidden Transcripts’ (Scott 1990: v):

When the great lord passes, the wise peasant bows deeply and silently farts.

While this action has no observable effect on the Lord, it does indicate that resistance has a hidden form, that may be uncovered through access to hidden transcripts (Scott 1990). To flesh-out the importance and impact of hidden forms of resistance, we need to acknowledge that resistance is a distinct consequence of a projection of power. Additionally, resistance can be described as a form of empowerment (Divon & Derman 2017, 17), and as such, resistance is a projection of power in reaction to a projection of power (Foucault 1978, 95; Foucault 1982, 781). Keeping in mind the main sources of social power: ideological, economic, military and political (Mann 2013, 2), resistance can be described as the application of the social sources of power to counter various projections of power.

Three strategies of power projection

Lukes (2005 [1974]) describes in his seminal work three strategies of power projection employed in attempts to exercise domination: coercion, controlling the agenda, and shaping systems of beliefs and ideologies. If we view resistance as a projection of power against an act of domination, then it becomes clear that Lukes’ strategies of power projection are not available to the dominated as they are available to the dominator. An effort to formalize how to view and deal with the different faces of power has been devised through Gaventa’s Powercube (Gaventa 2006; Gaventa & Pettit 2011). The Powercube is an attempt to demonstrate that decisions on where and how to confront power take different forms. Research that describes resistance strategies employed by the dominated in face of projections of power reveals that there are both visible as well as hidden and invisible strategies of resistance (Lukes 2005; Scott 1985; Scott 1990; Gaventa & Pettit 2011). This can be described as such:

Assuming that A is the powerful individual or entity who consciously exercises power over B to achieve A’s own ends; often B finds ways to use the exercise of power by A: to undermine A; to give A the impression that A is more powerful than s/he really is; to allow A to exercise parts of his or her power but concede other parts; or to gain power, to ends that serve B’s purposes and/or interests (sometimes against A’s own interests and intentions). This can be achieved: with knowledge of A, without knowledge of A, or with partial knowledge of A (Divon 2015, 33; Divon & Derman 2017, 17).

Examples that illustrate some of the strategies described in the quote above were documented through research conducted under the Greenmentality project and include:

1. A group of farmers in Tanzania were forced by the authorities to grow certain exotic varieties of trees and abandon their own customary practices. These farmers did not openly resist the authorities, and gave them the impression of acceptance and compliance. In reality, these farmers choose not to water nor take care of the exotic varieties. Through this, the farmers undermined the edict while giving the authorities the impression of compliance.
2. Another similar example is of another community in Tanzania who rented the services of poachers to illegally harvest their own plantations. In this case, the authorities believed that the plantation was poached by criminals, thus the community gave the impression of compliance while in essence it was engaged in resistance.
3. In another case, during a visit to conservation area in India, a group of researchers observed together with a park ranger, a group of local people ‘illegally’ extracting resources from the conservation area. In this case the authorities were aware of such acts of resistance, but choose to tolerate those as long they remained within certain limits. This was accepted for a variety of reasons, including lack of resources to pursue acts of ‘petty theft’ (as observed by the rangers), as long as the community did not extract wildlife from the conservation area.

What these examples illustrate is that resistance can be viewed as means of empowerment that exist where projections of power are employed. Acts of resistance are the projection of power through visible, invisible and hidden strategies. Invisible and hidden strategies have the advantage of harming the interests of the powerful, undermining their objectives while protecting the interests of the powerless\subjugated\less powerful.

It is important to note that we have been focusing here on power by examining how it manifests, or in other words, relations of power. But to be able to unpack “complex strategic situation in a particular society” (Foucault 1978, 93), we should also wear Foucauldian lenses that assist delineating the myriad of constraints bounding physical and cognitive choices. For such an analysis Foucault offers the concept of ‘Governmentality’. In other words, beyond the manifestation of power relations, we could also examine power by fleshing out the means through which it is exercised, or as Foucault suggests, by questioning the ontology that regulates both power and resistance (Foucault 1982, 786).

References 

Cavanagh, C.J. and Benjaminsen, T.A. (2015). Guerrilla agriculture? A biopolitical guide to illicit cultivation within an IUCN Category II protected area. Journal of Peasant Studies 42: 725-745.

Divon, S.A. (2015). Exceptional Rules – US Assistance Policy in Africa. Aas: Universitetet for miljø- og biovitenskap.

Divon, S.A. & Derman, W. (2017). United States Assistance Policy in Africa: Exceptional Power. London & New York: Routledge.

Foucault, M. (1978) The History of Sexuality. Vol. 1: An Introduction. New York: Pantheon Books.

Foucault, M. (1982). The Subject and Power. Critical Inquiry 8(4): 777-795.

Gaventa, J. (2006). Finding the spaces for Change: A Power Analysis. IDS Bulletin 37(6): 22-33.

Gaventa, J. & Pettit, J. (2011). A response to ‘Powercube: understanding power for social change’. Journal of Political Power 4(2): 309-316.

Lukes, S. (2005). Power: A Radical View. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Mann, M. (2013). The Sources of Social Power. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Russel, B. (2004). Power: A New Social Analysis. London & New York: Routledge.

Scott, J.C. (1985). Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Scott, J.C. (1990). Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts. Yale University Press

Scott J.C. (2012). Two Cheers for Anarchism: Six Easy Pieces on Autonomy, Dignity, and Meaningful Work and Play. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Follow more blog posts from this project at the Greenmentality webpages.

Shai André Divon is Head of Department at Noragric. His main research focus is on power through foreign assistance, development politics, and post-conflict reconstruction.

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Written by Connor Cavanagh, Postdoctoral Fellow, Noragric.  This post is one of a series that will explore the aims and conceptual bases of the Noragric-led Greenmentality project.

First published in the Greenmentality Blog.

The post Mentalities of greening, governing, and getting rich appeared first on Noragric blog.

On the 22 November 2017, the Subcommittee on Security and Defence in the European Parliament held a public hearing on the ‘The Security Dimension of Climate Change – What Implications for EU Common Security and Defence Policy?’

I was one of three invited speakers at this event, and talked about ‘Climate Security in the Sahel’. Based on several case studies of land-use conflicts in Mali, I expressed general scepticism to the idea that climate change is a key driver of conflicts in the Sahel. 

First of all, the Sahel has become greener since the droughts of the 1980s. Therefore, land-use conflicts are not necessarily driven by increasing scarcity. Instead, they have political and historical causes, such as the marginalisation of pastoralists and corruption. Pastoralists are losing access to key dry season pastures and their livestock corridors are increasingly being blocked. This creates conflicts between farmers and herders. In addition, rent-seeking among government officials undermines people’s trust in government institutions, which leads people to take action on their own. 

Prior to the crisis of 2012, these frustrations among the rural peasantry were completely missed by international development actors.

The climate-conflict narrative also plays a role in taking political attention away from these much more important causes. We have already seen this in Mali. Before the current crisis took off in 2012, the international community focused on the risks of climate change in Mali, including its conflict potential. At the same time, Mali was praised internationally as a model for African democratic development, despite critical internal debates about the Malian democracy being in crisis, due in part to increasing corruption.

The current wave of jihadist insurgency in Mali has shrewdly exploited these rising anti-elite and anti-government feelings, in particular among pastoralists and small-scale farmers. Hence, their decision to join these groups is primarily based on local grievances rather than religious conviction.

Prior to the crisis of 2012, these frustrations among the rural peasantry were completely missed by international development actors, who continued to praise the Malian democracy and focus on climate change as an important threat to this democracy.

This significant policy failure may be repeated in new security policies if the roots of jihadism in the Sahel are not taken more seriously.

Tor Arve Benjaminsen is a human geographer and Professor at the Department of International Environment and Development Studies at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. 

The post Climate Change, Jihadism and Policy Failures in the Sahel appeared first on Noragric blog.

Written by Tor Arve Benjaminsen, Professor, Noragric.

Droughts can potentially help escalate conflicts, but empirical evidence from the Sahel suggests that the root causes of land disputes are more historical and political than climate driven.

The climate-conflict narrative

The Sahel is often highlighted as a hotspot of violent conflicts, typically occurring between farmers and pastoralists or between the state and armed groups. More recently, jihadist violence, in particular by groups associated with ISIL and Al Qaeda in Mali, Boko Haram in Nigeria and Al-Shabab in Somalia, has also added to this image of the Sahel as a conflict-ridden part of the world.

With climate change becoming a leading global political issue, a powerful policy narrative has emerged which uses global warming to explain conflicts. In contrast to this narrative, most empirical research points to the role of political and historical factors as the root causes of conflicts in the Sahel.

Many politicians, international civil servants and climate activists seem attracted to the idea of climate-driven conflicts. For instance, in a newspaper article in 2007 UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon made a connection between global warming and the Darfur conflict. In the same year, the idea was also at the crux of the decision to award the Nobel Peace Prize to former US Vice President Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). According to the Norwegian Nobel Committee, human-induced climate change is one of the main causes of violent conflict and war in the world today, and violence between farmers and herders in the Sahel are the most typical examples of what the committee calls ‘climate wars’. Also many climate activists champion the idea of climate-driven conflicts – for instance the idea has been repeatedly promoted by former executive director of Greenpeace Kumi Naidoo.

This narrative about the climate-conflict link in the Sahel consists of two elements. First, it assumes that global climate change leads to drought and desertification, which in turn result in resource scarcity. Secondly, this resource scarcity is believed to cause migration and the emergence of new conflicts, or to trigger existing ones.

The re-greening of the Sahel

The claim that rainfall in the Sahel is decreasing is problematic, because the rains have increased again after the drought of the 1980s. Since it is largely rainfall that drives the Sahelian ecosystem, global warming might obviously in the long run produce desertification and resource scarcity – if it reduces rainfall. However, there is currently considerable uncertainty about current rainfall trends and projections in the Sahel. This uncertainty is generally stressed by climate scientists who model how global warming will affect the climate in the Sahel. While some models support the theory that this region will become drier, a majority of models actually suggest not only more abundant, but also possibly more delayed and concentrated rainfall in the future in the Sahel. This might lead to more vegetation over all, and more runoff and floods.

In fact, because of increased rainfall since the 1980s, instead of desertification, the Sahel became greener again over this period. The re-greening of the Sahel has actually been observed for more than a decade. More recent research by French scientists has also confirmed this trend.  Based on long-term research in northern Mali, this French team observed not only strong resilience and recuperation of the vegetation on sandy soils, but also detected a transformation and thinning of the vegetation on shallow soils. This latter process is linked to stronger and more concentrated run-off resulting in increasing water levels in temporary streams and lakes that in some places have become permanent (see here).

Hence, while there is a general re-greening of the Sahel caused by stronger rainfall trends since the droughts of the 1980s, there has also been the opposite, a thinning of vegetation on shallow soils, which again leads to more run-off and increased water bodies. In a similar vein and in parallel to the myth of the marching desert, the drying of Lake Chad, the largest lake in the Sahel, is also a myth according to recent research.

Both these observed and opposing trends are in fact contrary to received wisdom and the dominating policy narrative on the Sahel represented, for instance, by the Great Green Wall Initiative, which aims to make the Sahel green and thereby to fight desertification. This initiative is funded by the Global Environment Facility at the tune of over 100 million USD.

Political causes of conflicts

The narrative of climate-driven conflicts first assumes desertification to be a widespread process in the Sahel, and second it postulates such resource scarcity increases conflict levels. This second link cannot be dismissed theoretically, even if empirical results from international research question the validity of this correlation. Most quantitative research undermines the existence of such a general link between climate and conflict, while case studies in central parts of the Sahel indicate that the conflicts have other causes such as rent seeking among government officials as well as policies and legislation that are marginalizing pastoralists.

In the dry parts of Africa where pastoralism and farming overlap as the main forms of land use, there are continuous conflicts of varying scale. These conflicts have historical and political causes.  For instance, farmer-herder conflicts in Mali are associated with the state’s pastoral and land tenure policies and legislation, which generally are to the disadvantage of pastoralists and tend to lead to their marginalization. Three structural factors can be seen as the main drivers behind these conflicts: agricultural encroachment that has obstructed the mobility of herders and livestock, opportunistic behavior of rural actors as a consequence of an increasing political vacuum following decentralization and the disintegration and withdrawal of state services, and corruption and rent seeking among government officials (see here and here).

Pastoral marginalization is also at the root of the Tuareg rebellion in Mali. The droughts of the 1970s and 1980s did, however, play an indirect role in the rebellion, because they led to the migration of young men to Algeria and Libya, where they were exposed to revolutionary discourses. There was already a strong feeling among nomads and Tuareg in Mali of being marginalized by state policies of modernization and sedentarization. Embezzlement of drought relief funds by government officials in Bamako added further to the anger felt by young Tuareg in Algeria and Libya who took up arms against the Malian state in 1990. The droughts of the 1970s and 1980s were probably not a necessary condition for the rebellion to take place. The first Tuareg rebellion in Mali took place in 1963 following an unusually humid period.

Pastoralists are probably the group best adapted to climate variability through their opportunistic and flexible resource use strategies. But at the same time, pastoralists are suffering from state policies favoring settled agriculture in many countries in the Sahel. Even though pastoralists are losing access to land, livestock-keeping remains one of the economically most important activities throughout the Sahel and the large export of live animals to neighboring countries, especially on the West African coast, continues.

Conclusion

Even though droughts or flooding may potentially help escalate conflicts, empirical evidence from the Sahel, as well as from other parts of Africa, demonstrates a lack of correlation between climate and conflicts, and suggests that the root causes of land disputes are historical and political in character. While climate change remains a dangerous global challenge, over-stretching its causal responsibility may not only undermine long-term public engagement, but also depoliticize and thereby gloss over the real causes of conflicts, which could hinder the process of finding effective solutions to disputes.

Originally published in ‘Sustainable Security‘, a programme of the independent peace and security think-and-action-tank, Oxford Research Group (ORG).

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Written by Jill Tove Buseth, PhD Fellow, Noragric

The broad and somewhat blurry term ‘the green economy‘ has for the last three to four years emerged as a leading idea within environmental politics, and the green shift has become extremely popular among policy makers, politicians and the broader population in general. The green shift has also had a growing influence within development thinking. But there are several reasons to be wary of the belief that ‘green’ projects are the solution to the complex challenges of underdevelopment and climate change the world is experiencing today. Putting ‘green’ labels on various development projects has proved to overshadow other and more important challenges, and there is a tendency that such ‘green’ projects are not always adequately quality-assured due to the urge of quickly implementing environment and mitigation projects, as well as the rapid transfer of aid money.

Green economy has for a long time been a strategic area within aid and development work in the global South, and Norway is one of the countries that has channeled huge portions of its development aid to climate- and environment programs across the globe. Carbon offsetting and forest protection programs such as REDD+ are well-known initiatives meant to combine environment and climate measures, assurance of social justice and social development, as well as create economic growth, echoing the three main pillars within a green economy. However, several of these projects have been widely criticized for social injustice at the local level. This is familiar through discussions around sustainable development, which since the Brundtland Commission’s report in 1987, has stood solid in international environment and development work and thinking. But there is something new in the ideas surrounding the green economy which has attracted a much wider specter of actors, and made even the most neo-liberal business corporations warmly welcome the green shift.

One of the main reasons that the green economy has become so well-established in such a short time probably lies in the fact that the focus is no longer on sustainability, but on the economy. In this way is has been far easier to reach out to new arenas among others the business sector. By keeping the underlying goal of capital accumulation and economic growth, but in a manner that, to a greater extent, answers to climate policies and measures, it has been far easier for governments and private companies to accept a green shift.

Moreover, diffuse decisions and unclear politics make it easier to define for yourself what qualifies as ‘green’ and not. Consequently, almost all major companies have some sort of green focus today. We hear about preservation of natural resources in the mining industry, sustainable oil extraction, and a general transfer towards a greener profile amongst all manner of companies and businesses. The VW scandal last year is one example of a failed green measure, but there is a growing body of examples from among others the agricultural sector in several African countries, where the green shift has already come far in its implementation. Investment in agriculture is regarded as one of the main strategic areas for change in a green economy.

The fact that foreign actors are involved in African agriculture is nothing new, and not necessarily a problem. The problem is that great ideas on the transfer to a green economy do not, in many cases, represent the projects that are actually being implemented. The visionary ideas behind it are great, but in practice projects mostly turn out to become something very different. In Tanzania, the agricultural corridor SAGCOT has, since 2010, been a leading initiative combining environmental measures, agricultural development, economic growth and poverty reduction (or ‘wealth creation’). SAGCOT is a public-private partnership first initiated by the Norwegian fertilizer company Yara, where around 80% of the partners are from the private sector, mostly big multi-national agri-corporations. SAGCOT’s function is to provide a linkage and a platform for discussion between foreign companies and the Tanzanian government, which in practice means that it is paving way for private agribusiness corporations such as Monsanto, Unilever, Yara and Sunflower, who wish to invest in agriculture in the country. SAGCOT’s goal for the coming decades is to create so-called green, economic growth through hundreds of different projects on ground, mainly by transferring huge land areas from small scale farming to large-scale commercial agriculture. In practice this means that the livelihoods of several hundred thousands of smallholders are being put at risk.

There is good reason to question who has been given priority when foreign companies have sought access to land for investment purposes. Much evidence points in the direction that power and money has come before local people’s needs in the areas of concern. Interestingly and importantly, it was not sustainable development that was the goal when the idea of SAGCOT was born – it was profit and opening up new markets for own products.

It is in relation to this interesting fact, that both of the two projects SAGCOT promote as their own show cases (EcoEnergy ltd. and Kilombero Plantations ltd.) have been heavily criticized from several sources – even before SAGCOT was established. There have been wide accusations of land grabbing, evictions, insufficient or absent compensation for lost land access, violence, and unclear contracts, and insufficient local participation and decision-making processes. Land grabbing claims are not something new in the African context, but the manner and scale to which SAGCOT systematically operates is something quite different and worth paying attention to.

To make a green shift work in terms of social justice for the broader global population, it is important to understand the motives and drivers behind such ‘green’ projects to avoid unintended consequences at the local level. Only by a broader understanding of, and a critical spotlight on these relations, can the goals within the green economy be reached.

Also published in ‘Nationen’ and ‘forskning.no’.

Jill Tove Buseth is a PhD Fellow at Noragric. Her research topic is: ‘Global discourses and local realities of the green economy: implications of transferring the green shift from policy to practice, with a focus on the SAGCOT initiative in Tanzania’.

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