The World Economic Forum (WEF) and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) launched the Trillion Trees initiatives to have one trillion trees growing on the planet by 2030. As great as those initiatives may sound, these efforts are far from noble, based on what we found out in Africa. These causes were intended to mobilize a global movement to conserve, restore and grow trees. However, we found that the real motivation behind this push was the revenues generated from these reforestation projects.
The WEF and WWF have partnered with AFR100 (the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative) a ‘pan-African country-led’ drive that aims to bring 100 million hectares of land in Africa into restoration by 2030. Here is our problem with their definition of ‘African-led’. From the list of AFR100’s technical and financial partners, they are mainly Foreign Organizations that have set up field offices in these African countries to leverage the ‘Climate Change’ financing flooding into Africa.
The WEF, WWF and AFR100 have attracted huge amounts of funds from large corporations and governments worldwide, in their attempt to compensate for their carbon emissions by funding reforestation projects that would generate carbon credits to offset the emitted carbon. We found that the use of these carbon offsets and some nature-based solutions have been fueling even more pollution. These attempts have promoted Greenwashing in Africa.
According to Investopedia, Greenwashing is ‘a process of conveying a false impression or misleading information often exaggerated, about how a company and its products are environmentally friendly or have a greater positive environmental impact than they actually do’. The trees planted in Africa are to partially enable Africa to earn income as part of the ‘climate justice’ for the continent’s suffering at the hands of the other global polluters. The United Nations adopted a resolution last month that supports Climate Justice for less polluting countries as part of their Climate Action. Additionally, many companies have resorted to these green initiatives to help save their image, and capitalize on the growing demand for ‘going green’.
Carbon Credits Trading in Africa.
Multinational corporations purchase carbon credits to offset their carbon emissions through companies that review carbon sequestration projects such as grasslands, rangelands and forests in Africa. This in turn helps the corporations claim that they are ‘reducing their emissions’ through nature-based solutions and the developing countries gain revenues from the global carbon market.
Carbon credits are generated when custodians of forests protect them from deforestation by creating credits, and these credit projects are rated and sold by certain companies. Pachama is a company that offers these carbon credits as offsets to corporations that have fossil-fuel emissions, thus reducing their impact and in order for them to claim to be ‘carbon neutral’. Verra is the company that sets the standards for the offsets sold by companies such as Pachama.
According to Source Material, ‘Verra publishes the methodologies for creating offsetting projects, including forest protection initiatives and authenticate the credits they generate.’ Studies have shown that these carbon credits were accounting for very little real reductions in emissions. Verra has sold carbon credits to big companies such as Disney, United Airlines, Air France, Samsung, Liverpool Football Club, Ben & Jerry’s, Netflix, Chevron and Meta.
Verra has not been a reliable or credible source of evaluating carbon emission reductions. Moreover, Verra’s forest projects have exaggerated how much they managed ‘avoided deforestation’ by over 400 percent. Research shows that predictions from companies like Verra cannot be trusted as Science because they have ‘vastly overstated’ their climate benefits. They cannot ascertain or effectively quantify how efficient some frameworks such as the ‘reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation’ (REDD) framework is through their authenticated credit projects.
The Con in Conservation.
As we first reported in another article, the Northern Rangelands Trust is one of the larger wildlife conservancies in Kenya that have been a culprit of massive expansion at the expense of local communities. Through its carbon sequestration projects known as the Northern Kenya Carbon Project, this conservancy reportedly earned approximately $14.6million from carbon credits acquired by some companies such as Meta and Netflix. Our organization (Afribundance) joined other activists in bringing this to the global attention, and we can proudly report some of their projects submitted for carbon credit review to Verra have now been suspended. We will continue monitoring this.
A scandalous report titled ‘Blood Carbon’ by Survival International exposed The Northern Rangelands Trust’s human rights violations in Kenya through its carbon offset projects. It is surprising that this organization has been partnering with WWF, Disney, USAID, the EU among many other international organizations and governments that seem to turn a blind eye to these violations.
The Northern Rangelands Trust had earned so much revenue from its carbon sequestration projects, yet this amount did not help local communities. As a matter of fact, more pastoralists have been displaced from their lands as the conservancies seek to vastly expand their ‘green projects’.
Tree planting schemes in Congo are barring farmers from their own lands. The giant oil company Total has a carbon offsetting project planting 40000 hectares with acacia trees that has seen people evicted from their property. This is estimated to generate $4 million of offsets in carbon credits that Total will use to offset its fossil-fuel emissions. Verra will verify the offsets and issue the carbon credits. Consequently, these schemes threaten the farmers’ survival and destroy their livelihoods.
Source Material reported that Verra had falsely claimed that the offsetting project around the shores of Lake Kariba in Zimbabwe, was protecting a forest three times larger than the size of Luxembourg. This project is run by South Pole that has sold credits from this Lake Kariba to Volkswagen, Delta Airlines, Lidl including the oil giant TotalEnergies which used them in controversially claiming that they were ‘shipping carbon-neutral gas’. The project overstated the threat to the forest by up to 30 times. These same claims of ‘threats to the forests’ have seen corrupt African governments expel indigenous communities from their lands.
Our research found that California-based Eden reforestation projects falsely claimed that over 90% of Kenya has been deforested through logging, charcoal burning and that illegal settling would only accelerate forest loss. This is an ideal example of deceit by some of these foreign organizations coming to ‘help save Africa’. The Kenya Forest officials that we interviewed agreed that this was a fallacious claim. Coincidentally, we found that Eden reforestation Projects owns the ‘Compassionate Carbon’ company that handles carbon credits trades through their offset projects.
So this ‘non-profit’ foreign organization receives donations to sell tree seedling/saplings to developing countries, acquires a large share of the tree-planting (carbon offsets) projects only to sell these projects for carbon credits? Something is wrong with this equation. Such a conflict of interest, for organizations claiming to be philanthropic and ‘helping local communities’. Why is one organization handling all these ‘transactions’ in Africa? How can we monitor, evaluate and hold them accountable to ensure transparency? This is among many reasons that have led to exploitation and the failure of conservation efforts in Africa.
Failure of the Great Green Wall.
The Great Green Wall was an initiative that was started in 2007 as a reforestation project to restore 100 million hectares of land across Africa’s Sahel region, to sequester 250 million tonnes of carbon, and create 10 million green jobs according to WEF. It aimed to promote sustainable land and water management in Africa’s dry-lands, through interventions such as climate-smart agriculture, sustainable pastoralism, conservation forestry, energy transition and natural resource governance.
The Food and Agriculture Organization dubbed the initiative a potential ‘game-changer‘ to combat climate change and desertification in order to address food insecurity and poverty. 15 years later, the Great Green Wall turned out to be a disappointment as 80 percent of the trees planted died. African countries are still battling severe food shortages, pastoralism has suffered at the hands of conservationists. Every aspect that this initiative set to accomplish has actually become even worse, but of course they now cast blame on climate change.
Additionally, scientists and critics claimed that ‘it was a very stupid way of restoring the land in the Sahel’ as tree saplings died. Surprisingly, this initiative has been selected among the first world restoration flagships of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration that is supported by the WEF’s one trillion tree initiative. It also has been revamped and we couldn’t help but notice the similarities of this old initiative to the newer AFR100. This new reforestation approach is an attempt to tap into the carbon market and has seen many Africans especially the indigenous communities being illegally forced out of their ancestral lands in the claim of ‘mitigating climate change’.
Forceful Eviction of Indigenous African Communities.
During the height of the global COVID-19 pandemic, the Kenyan government forcefully evicted the Ogiek and Sengwer ethnic groups and torched their homes in an effort to get them to leave the forest. The government claimed that these communities were destroying the forests from massive logging and poaching activities. Our researchers at Afribundance found this claim to be false.
As a matter of fact, these ethnic communities are known as ‘guardians of these forests’. Their traditions include allowing their natural environments to remain as ‘untouched’ as possible. They live a very simple non-commercial life and are very content in their traditional barter settings, thus have no motivation to destroy forests or kill animals for money. These ethnic communities use the fallen branches and twigs for firewood, and they lack the machinery for the purported large scale logging that they are accused of.
Their ancestral lands are being taken away as the Kenyan government invests in larger ‘carbon offset projects’. On the contrary, corrupt government officials and politicians were behind the massive logging and poaching of wildlife as we reported in another article. The corrupt government officials continue logging trees and ‘planting new ones’ even though the new trees take decades to mature and absorb enough carbon from the atmosphere.
Currently, any local residents going through the forests for their religious functions or looking for medicinal plants are deemed trespassers, poachers or bandits, and are consequently attacked by the forest rangers. This has led to a lot of bloodshed in the name of protecting forests to help ‘fight climate change’.
Other communities such as the Maasai have lost their lands to ‘wildlife conservancies’ that have been hoodwinking the world into thinking that their work is creating such meaningful impact in Africa. These conservancies were fencing and blocking off pastoralist movement routes that they use for grazing their herds. They cut off their access to watering holes and this led to the death of animals that is then showcased to the world as the ‘worsening of drought’ in Africa, while hiding some of these facts.
These evictions and clashes have been rife for decades with the World Bank and the European Union (that have been partnering with the WEF and WWF) receiving blame for some of their projects in these volatile areas. These organizations have been viewed as being complicit to these human rights violations. After public and media uproar, the EU recently suspended the financing of the Water tower protection and Climate Change Programme Project.
Auctioning and Destruction of rainforests.
The World’s second largest rainforest in the Congo Basin has been facing enormous destruction leading to loss of biodiversity. Additionally, the Congolese government has decided to auction off part of this rainforest, by letting multinational energy companies bid for access to the rich oil and gas reserves in this region. Some of these oil companies including Italian giant energy firm Eni are corporate alliance members for the trillion tree initiatives by the WEF.
Eni actually signed an agreement with the Republic of Congo that provided the acceleration and increase of natural gas production from Congo. This is a perfect example of Greenwashing tactic applied by Eni.
The oil and gas reserves in the Congo Basin are estimated to be well worth over $600 billion and the government is claiming that this will help generate revenues to help address the poverty in Congo. However, in the past, many rare-earth minerals and other natural resources have been stolen and corruptly smuggled out of the country, taking the resources and revenue away from the Congolese people.
In Kenya, the government approved the exportation of baobab trees to Georgia. Baobab trees are the real climate-resilient trees, as they thrive and survive for thousands of years. These trees are known for their tasty fruits/seeds, medicinal properties, and cosmetic products produced from their oil and have been a source of livelihood for many generations. Ironically, this same government has launched the 15-billion trees initiative that aims to plant those trees by 2032.
Massive suspicious fires have also destroyed Kenya’s forests, even though neighboring countries have successfully dealt with curbing forest fires. Tanzania has deployed satellite surveillance to help stop this. Many forests and water catchment areas in Kenya have seen enormous destruction, including pro-government supporters recently destroying trees planted in the former president’s northlands.
Big polluters sponsoring ‘green projects’ in Africa.
Some of WEF’s trillion trees corporate alliance members include AstraZeneca, hp, Ericsson, Nestle, PepsiCo Unilever, Mastercard among others. Some of these companies have been accused of being involved in similar Greenwashing tactics in Africa. We found that Amazon, Microsoft, Shell and Eni were directly involved in sponsoring tree planting projects through either WEF or WWF.
Amazon
Amazon founder’s Bezos Earth Fund is partnering with many organizations in Africa that claim to be ‘fighting climate change and protecting nature’. This fund is largely funding the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative (AFR100).
Additionally, the Bezos Earth Fund awarded $100 million to World Wildlife Fund (WWF) that has now changed its name to the World Wide Fund for Nature. WWF has been criticized by Africans for its expansion practices and its inhumane treatment of local communities in Africa for decades. It is an open secret that WWF has been accused of creating ‘conservation refugees’ by forcing indigenous native tribes out of their lands globally. They have left communities worse off with little financing reaching the local residents, even as WWF attracts such huge funding.
Moreover, wildlife has been lost in large numbers from trophy hunting and from poor conservation efforts, even as they claim that the recent drought wiped away a lot of the wildlife in Africa. WWF has been criticized for their human rights abuses and deception to the rest of the world including through an unprecedented hearing by the US House Congressional Committee on Natural Resources. The WWF partnered in the launch of the trillion trees initiative in what we view as Greenwashing tactics by both WWF and Amazon. Amazon has been accused of interfering and turning indigenous marginalized communities against each other in South Africa, as Amazon was building its headquarters in Africa.
Microsoft
Microsoft has gone a step further by launching the Microsoft E-tree program that allows individuals to earn points ‘to grow a virtual seed into a virtual tree’. Once the individual earns 10,000 points a real tree is planted in Kenya through Microsoft’s partnership with Eden Reforestation Projects. Microsoft was planning to plant 400000 trees under that pilot program. Notably, California-based Eden Reforestation projects has also received funding from the Bezos Earth Fund for its reforestation projects in Africa. This is the same organization that we discussed earlier that owns the carbon credit trading company!
Shell and Eni Energy firms
Shell and Eni are some of the corporate alliance members of the WEF’s 1trillion trees. Shell has been responsible for negligent oil spills in Africa, further degrading the environment. Eni is the Italian giant energy firm that has been embroiled in many corruption scandals and legal battles in Africa. Ironically, Eni received 300,000 acres of land in Kenya from Kenya’s president, in a dubious deal that has not yet been fully disclosed to us. The problem with this land deal is the lack of transparency, given that Kenyan indigenous and pastoralist communities have been forcefully evicted from their lands and rendered homeless, yet a large foreign corporation acquires such vast amount of land in the claim that it will provide green jobs as it produces biofuels.
Small African-owned Businesses are destroyed by large foreign organizations.
Our research found that many of the trees being planted in Africa are exotic trees. The Kenya Forest Service officials interviewed for this article could not confirm or deny if the ‘certified seeds’ provided were genetically modified or imported. Most of the local tree-nursery businesses have lost a large share of the market, as governments dictate the specific tree nurseries authorized to provide trees for the reforestation projects.
We found that local businesses that sold indigenous trees for decades have now been put out of business as large foreign organizations are spearheading the reforestation projects. The government is not buying from the local taxpayers who pay hefty taxes, even as some of these foreign organizations get tax waivers from their ‘non-profit’, ‘international investor’ or ‘jobs-creator’ status.
Foreign organizations such as the One Acre Fund, Eden reforestation Projects, OneTreePlanted, World Resources Institute, among others were spearheading these reforestation projects in Africa. Very few African organizations such as The Green Belt movement are involved in Africa’s reforestation decision-making or in the technical expertise provision of AFR100. This is ironic given that The Green Belt movement’s founder the late great Wangari Maathai won the Nobel Peace Prize for her ‘persistent struggle for democracy, human rights and environmental conservation’. She led tree planting projects in Kenya and condemned the land grabbing by some of Kenya’s current government officials. She mobilized Kenyans in schools, churches and local organizations to plant trees, and this tree-planting tradition took off immensely.
This goes to show that Africa is very well capable, and does not need the ‘saving help complex’ portrayed by some of these Western institutions. Also, the large amounts of ‘climate change mitigation’ funding coming to Africa is being channeled back to the same polluting countries through these international ‘tree planting’ businesses and non-profits that own carbon offset companies!
Additionally, all of these foreign organizations have received funding from the Bezos Earth Fund including the World Resources Institute (WRI). Ironically, at the time of publishing this article, WRI had ‘registered to open an office in Nairobi Kenya’ meaning that this ‘new field office’ will come in and spearhead reforestation efforts where other established Kenyan environmental organizations are already existent. Additionally, WRI recently appointed Wanjira Maathai (the late Wangari Maathai’s daughter) as the organization’s Regional director in Africa. Ms. Maathai is also a director at her late mother’s ‘tree-planting’ organization the Green Belt movement as well as for the Wangari Maathai Foundation.
So this clearly illustrates why many real environmental organizations in Africa feel ‘left out’ and their efforts hampered by some of these large organizations, since they are not getting access to much of this funding that is circulating in very small circles. They are also kept in the dark in decision-making as purported ‘new and better’ foreign ideas are imposed on them without including their input in these reforestation or land restoration matters.
The local communities are not entirely benefitting from these green projects as these large organizations claim. There are Africans that are receiving ‘green jobs’ by planting or taking care of the trees’ but not making a real living wage given the high cost of living and taxation in African countries. A great majority of Africans freely volunteer to plant these trees. Local communities have been planting trees and enjoy joining in the reforestation projects, and this work should be left to Africans so that they can derive a sense of pride and prestige in their conservation efforts. These large organizations rob them of this with the ‘unnecessary’ overarching help in some of these noble tasks. Additionally, the inclusion and involvement of indigenous communities other than evicting them would be the best way of having a sustainable conservation solution. None of these foreign organizations have come forth to address the plight of the suffering displaced (taxpaying) communities.
AFR100 has the TerraFund supported by Bezos Earth Fund, Facebook and other organizations that was launched through the foreign organizations that are spearheading the reforestation projects in Africa. It claims to invite small businesses and small non-profit projects to apply to receive direct investments for restoration projects. We will be watching and reporting on this to ensure that many small businesses actually benefit from this fund in Africa.
Other problems with these tree planting schemes.
There is a lack of transparency and accountability in the amount of funds received in donations/funding, amounts spent in acquiring and planting trees, how many trees are actually planted and so forth. The opacity of carbon markets coupled with the corruption in Africa, creates a perfect recipe for siphoning of funds intended to mitigate the effects of climate change through these reforestation projects. An effective framework and legislation is lacking to audit the climate change financing efforts in order to determine their effectiveness. It is imperative to have this framework in place otherwise Africa may be in a worse situation in coming years.
Another problem raised is that there has been a deliberate effort to destroy indigenous trees. Those trees known for their medicinal properties or other uses are being cut down. This has led to the mass introduction of new species that are not native to Africa, and concerns are raised that this may lead to losses for those who depend on the indigenous trees for traditional medicines. Also the loss of Africa’s biodiversity from invasive new species is also another concern.
One other valid concern raised is the Adopt-a-Forest scheme that was started to ensure that trees are taken care of after they are planted, to prevent another ‘Great Green Wall’ failure. In Kenya, many organizations had signed up to adopt sections of forests .
Organizations such as the same California-based Eden Reforestation Projects has 45 project sites across the country and claim to have ‘produced, planted and protected’ 50 million trees around Kenya. Are these the same carbon offset projects that they use to trade carbon credits at their Compassionate Carbon company?
The problem with adopt-a-forest would be the holding of forests hostage after ‘adopting’ them, as we have experienced with Wildlife Conservations in Africa. Initially, conservancies were there to help protect wildlife from poachers, and they were allocated large tracts of land. They then decided to fence off these conservancies and shut the pastoralists from moving through these tracts of land, and this led to an increase in animal-wildlife conflicts and conflicts between the conservancy and local communities. Also the adopt-a-forest and fencing off of forest areas and lakes such as Lake Olbolosat in Kenya (that is being rehabilitated through FAO and the Kenyan government) will keep locals out of their age-old traditions and enjoyment of parks, lakes and forests.
Additionally, who benefits from the carbon credits earned? The purported care-takers/adopters of the forest? Could that be the inhumane and corrupt reason for evicting indigenous forest custodians from benefitting from these projects? Since the forests will include geospatial monitoring in their efforts to conserve, these forests will soon become a preserve for the rich that can ‘adopt’ them, and the poor will be viewed as intruders or trespassers.
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