Following the publication of a report commissioned by the RSPB, ActionAid and Nature Kenya, focusing on the Dakatcha Woodlands in Kenya, Bill Cash MP – who is Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee and Chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Kenya – said:

“The report clearly shows how those woodlands are set to be destroyed in order to make way for jatropha plantations in pursuit of EU biofuels policy – and that the analysis in Dakatcha is just one example.

“As the ActionAid summary of the report suggests ‘sustainability standards such as those introduced by the EU don’t work. They lack teeth and are full of loopholes.’

“Targets which are contained in the EU Renewable Energy Directive cannot be met sustainably given the EU’s proposed massive increase in biofuels. A great part of the biofuel produced in Dakatcha is being sent to Europe because of new European Union targets. The Renewable Energy Directive requires 10 per cent of transport to be renewable by 2020 which has left us locked into an unworkable and unsustainable policy for biofuels.

“The RSPB, ActionAid and Nature Kenya are right to call for the scrapping of support for European Union targets for biofuels until it can be demonstrated that such targets can be met sustainably.

“The proposed biofuels plantation in the Dakatcha Woodlands must be abandoned.

“In order to meet EU targets in this ruthless manner, we are failing Dakatcha Woodlands which is home to thousands of indigenous tribespeople. The Dakatcha case clearly shows how biofuel plantations can create huge social upheaval of entire communities losing their land, homes and jobs. We should be supporting Kenya – and it is the EU biofuels policy which should be scrapped.

“It is clear from the research that Government ministers must now challenge European targets for biofuels.”

Note: In 2009, Kenya Jatropha Energy Ltd – owned by Italian company Nuove Iniziative Industriali Srl – proposed clearing 50,000 hectares in the Dakatcha area to develop the plantation. Following protests by the local community, the Kenyan government put the project on hold but the company has resubmitted a proposal for pilot project of up to 10,000 hectares.