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.
If those woodlands that are set to be destroyed in order to make way for jatropha plantations in pursuit of EU biofuels policy, will be managed effectively, then it will give more jobs to the people there. And then, the land will be have its use. But the management must have to see to it that they will be doing good to it.
The thinking that there is idle land in Africa is wrong. The so callled degraded lands are under livestock or traditional production systems by indigenous peoples. Puttting jatropha on cultivated lands will threaten food production. Bio-energy agenda and policy should be rethought. Jatropha in Tana like that in Dakatcha is not environmentally sustainable.
I agree that companies deforesting land to plant bio-fuel is a bad idea environmentally and socially, however, I am also amazed that many conservation organization’s use these situations to protest valid projects.
I do not know if they are intentionally spreading misinformation to push an agenda or are just to spread thin or lazy to check facts.
A good example is two large scale Jatropha projects in Kenya, one company is clearing out forests to plant and another is using deforested marginal & semi marginal land.
The main key to a recent Yale report was prior land use:
1. If the crop is planted on land that was already cleared or degraded, then additional carbon is stored and emissions reductions can exceed the 60 percent baseline.
Example, Tana Delta Jatropha Project
2. If Jatropha is planted on land previously covered in forest, shrubs or native grasses, benefits may disappear altogether.
Example, Dakatcha Woodlands Jatropha Project.
Opponents as well as proponents need to understand the context of the situation when discussing the facts of biofuel production.
Thank you for listening.
(www.worldagroforestry.org/downloads/publications/…/B16599.PDF)
http://www.hardmanandco.com/…/Jatropha%20Sector%20Report%20(Final).pdf
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/11/idUS165579253420110411