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DEFENDING LAND AND ENVIRONMENTAL RIGHTS

Trauma and Land Loss: New Study Focuses on Mental Health of Evicted Indigenous People

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5 years ago

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Kenyan security forces evict Ogiek people from the Mau Forest Complex in the  Rift Valley Region.

NAIROBI – At the foot of Kenya’s Mount Elgon on the border of Kenya and Uganda, the little-known indigenous community of Ogiek is living scattered in recently-built thatched huts and timber houses that belie not only their poverty but also the impermanence that followed their eviction by the government a year ago from their native lands on the mountain.

From a life in the forest, this community of just over 50,000 people can no longer access their land to hunt small game, gather wild fruits and medicinal herbs or practice beekeeping, as their forefathers did.

They have instead been forced to eke out a living through subsistence farming and keeping livestock – a lifestyle borrowed from agrarian communities. As such, they are unable to afford school fees and sometimes even sufficient food for their children.

The Ogiek community has been fighting a longstanding battle with the Kenyan government which claims that the evictions were necessary to conserve indigenous forests.

However, Daniel Kobei, the executive director of the Ogiek Peoples’ Development Program (OPDP), blames the evictions on the destruction of the forest by multinational companies and uncontrolled encroachment in the Mau Forest Complex. The OPDP is a Kenya-based NGO that promotes the recognition and identity of the Ogiek indigenous community and its culture.

As recently as July 2020, the Kenya Forest Service (KFS) personnel, with protection from the country’s security forces, have been driving the eviction process in defiance of a 2017 ruling of the African Court of Human and People’s Rights which recognised the Ogiek peoples’ right to their ancestral land, by evicting the community.

The community now finds itself thrust into an unfamiliar environment with their way of life grievously disrupted, making it difficult for them to cope – financially and emotionally.

Little Attention to Mental Strain of Evictions

Ogiek community members ponder on what to do next following their eviction from the Mau Forest Complex by Kenyan security forces.

While some local Kenyan and international groups have protested the evictions, the stress and mental health effects of the displacement have received little attention.

“When we talk about environmental changes, we often ignore the mental aspect that comes with it,” noted Billy Rwothungeyo of the Minority Rights Group International (MRG) told Health Policy Watch.

MRG is a human rights organisation that works to secure the rights of marginalized and indigenous communities around the world. It works in 150 countries, with its Africa office based in Kampala. It has a presence in Kenya, Uganda, Cameroon, Congo, Gambia, Ethiopia, Tunisia, and Egypt.

New Global Research Initiative Examines Mental Health Stress of Indigenous Communities

The Ogiek people are part of a new research initiative that will look into the mental strain faced by indigenous communities around the world facing evictions.

Indigenous communities in East Africa, Finland, Northern Thailand and India will participate in the global research project that looks at the emotional effects of environmental changes experienced by the world’s indigenous groups.

Dubbed Land Body Ecologies Research Group, the research will involve the Ogiek, the Batwa in Uganda, the Sámi in Finland, and the Pgak’yau in Northern Thailand. Communities living in the buffer zones of the Bannerghatta National Park in India will also take part.

The two-year research project, due to start in October, will involve human rights activists, mental health researchers, scientists and artists in a bid to understand solastalgia, a phenomenon defined as the emotional or existential suffering caused by environmental change. It is also commonly described as “the feeling of homesickness while still at home.”

Funded by the  Wellcome Trust Hub Award, the initiative will be led by Invisible Flock, an award-winning interactive arts studio based in London and MRG. The final project will take the form of an art exhibition in London.

“The space will be used to showcase results from the project, which will be open to the public, academics, media and other stakeholders,” explains Rwothungeyo.

“With around half of the world’s languages having no written form, art can act as a vehicle to bring forward alternative modes of expression not limited to human speech,” according to Victoria Pratt, artist and creative director of Invisible Flock in a press release

Pratt said that their approach is to tell multiple global stories at once, with the hope that through this process, solutions, answers, and meanings would be collectively conjured in the act of listening and retelling.

Indigenous Communities Continue to Lose Land.

A hut belonging to one of the Ogiek community members still smouldering following evictions carried out by the Kenyan security forces.

Indigenous communities all over the world have lost and continue to lose their ancestral lands due to encroachment from other communities and state-sanctioned evictions under the guise of forest conservation. This has brought with it environmental changes, which indigenous communities have had to live with, but whose mental and psychological toll is still not well understood, hence this new research effort.

To make matters worse, the minority groups say the global call to turn 30% of the world’s surface into protected areas by 2030 will displace hundreds of millions of indigenous peoples and traditional landowners.

Through the solastalgia research, the team aims to understand the lived experiences of land trauma on marginalised and indigenous communities.

Added to the food insecurities caused by environmental changes, indigenous communities also suffer increased incidence of diseases such as malaria, malnutrition, stomach disorders and respiratory diseases.

Involve Indigenous Communities More

“This research is supposed to inform such stakeholders as government and civil society to come up with more targeted measures to help marginalized communities, who are often overlooked in public policy,” added Rwothungeyo, maintaining that the study will also shed light on how these communities are being left behind and why governments should involve them more.

The OPDP’s Kobei said that even though the core objective of the research is to understand the mental predicament of indigenous communities brought on by environmental changes, they were hopeful that a learning center for the Ogiek culture will be established, following this study.

“If you talk to a 70-year-old Ogiek about the forest they have lost, he will talk in a very emotional manner,” said Kobei. “He will tell you of the kind of honey we used to harvest in the forest that is no more, the kind of hunting we used to undertake in the forest that is no more, the kind of herbs and clean water we used to get in the forest that are no more.”

Image Credits: Ogiek Peoples Development Program.

Original Source: Healthpolicy-watch.news

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DEFENDING LAND AND ENVIRONMENTAL RIGHTS

Africa is capturing just 2% of its carbon credit potential

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2 weeks ago

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April 12, 2026

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From left: Andrew Gilder, director of Climate Legal; Olivia Tuchten, principal climate change adviser at Promethium Carbon; and Dr Olufunso Somorin, carbon markets coordinator at the African Development Bank, at a pre-summit carbon workshop, where Somorin outlined Africa’s carbon market potential. Image: Robyn Joubert

Africa is not living up to its carbon credit potential, despite rapidly growing global demand for emissions offsets. With more projects emerging in South Africa and across the continent, and agriculture uniquely positioned to develop them, carbon markets could unlock billions in investment.

Africa is generating barely 2% of its carbon credit potential and stands on the threshold of a multibillion‑dollar climate finance transformation. With the global carbon market currently valued at roughly US$1 trillion (around R16,8 trillion) and projected to grow to US$2,4 trillion (R40,2 trillion) by 2030, Africa could claim its share if it acts quickly and credibly.

“There is vast potential for Africa to use high-integrity carbon projects to not only achieve emissions reductions but also development interventions on the ground. […] But we need to scale up and do more,” Dr Olufunso Somorin, African Development Bank (AfDB) carbon markets coordinator, said at a pre-summit carbon workshop ahead of the Africa’s Green Economy Summit in Cape Town in late February.

He described the current moment as a ‘second global carbon order’; a shift from the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) to the new market architecture under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement.

Africa underperformed in the first crediting period, between 2007 and 2011, when it captured only a tiny slice of the more than US$200 billion (R3,2 trillion) invested in CDM projects.

“Close to 1 800 projects were approved globally. Only 33 were in Africa and only 16 in South Africa. We took too long to embrace the opportunity,” Somorin added.

Carbon markets

Carbon markets have expanded significantly since then. According to Somorin, around 28% of global greenhouse gas emissions are currently covered by carbon pricing mechanisms, compared with barely 5% two decades ago.

The compliance market, where regulated entities purchase or trade emission allowances, was valued at more than US$850 billion (R13,5 trillion) in 2021 and reached roughly US$1 trillion (R18,7 trillion) in annual traded emissions by the end of 2024.

The voluntary carbon market (VCM) is significantly smaller, valued at about US$2 billion (R33,5 billion) globally but projected to grow rapidly.

“Total demand for voluntary credits is expected to increase at least 15-fold by 2030, reaching between US$10 billion [R167 billion] and US$25 billion [R419 billion], and could expand up to 100-fold by 2050, reaching between US$90 billion [R1,5 trillion] and US$480 billion [R8 trillion],” Somorin said.

Africa’s small slice of the pie

He added that Africa accounts for roughly US$200 million (R3,4 billion) in the VCM (about 8% by value) while generating around 16% of global voluntary credits. About 100 carbon credit projects across 20 African countries generate an estimated 90 million tons of emission reductions annually.

VCM trading in Africa is concentrated in five countries: Kenya, Zimbabwe, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, and Uganda. Together, they account for about 70% of Africa’s carbon credit activity, with Kenya responsible for roughly 25% of the continent’s credits.

Credits are generated mainly from avoided deforestation and clean cooking projects, as well as land use, hydropower, wind, and solar energy.

Increasing scrutiny

However, the VCM has faced a lot of scrutiny in recent years. Trading volumes dipped in 2024 amid integrity concerns, although Somorin expects a reset under tighter standards.

The demand outlook is shaped by rising global temperatures. According to the Climate Action Tracker’s ‘Warming Projections Global Update November 2024’, the world is not on track to limit warming to 1,5°C and is heading towards 2,7°C by 2100.

“Many African countries are already achieving emissions reductions through carbon development projects, but they are not structuring them according to verification protocols. This limits their ability to earn carbon credits,” Somorin said.

Private climate flows

Africa holds an estimated 15% of global carbon sequestration potential, which could generate up to US$82 billion (R1,4 trillion) annually by 2050 under high-integrity market conditions.

Yet private capital flows into Africa’s climate finance sector remain low, accounting for roughly 18% of total flows.

“On average, Africa needs about US$280 billion [R4,7 trillion] in annual climate finance. We are attracting only US$52 billion [R872 billion] annually, which is only 20% of our needs. We need to close the gap,” Somorin said.

To boost readiness, in 2025, the AfDB launched the Africa Carbon Support Facility (ACSF), capitalised with US$100 million (R1,7 billion) to catalyse private investment, support regulatory development, and advance policy and Article 6 reforms.

“What I can tell you today is that we don’t have a demand problem. We have a supply problem of high-integrity credits, and a lot of financial interventions are required to close the gap,” he added.

Snapshots of successful carbon projects in Africa

Dr Olufunso Somorin highlighted several African carbon projects with the potential to deliver significant environmental and social benefits:

Rwanda: SPOUTS’ ceramic water filter project has issued more than 350 000 filters, delivering safe drinking water to more than 1,5 million people and avoiding about 1,5 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO₂e) by eliminating the need to boil water using non-renewable wood. This high-integrity project prevents more than 150 000t of wood use annually, thus protecting forests, and cutting indoor air pollution by around 90%.

South Africa: the uMkhanyakude Restoration Project in KwaZulu‑Natal is a high-integrity carbon project aimed at restoring degraded grasslands in the Maputaland–Pondoland–Albany biodiversity hotspot. Led by AfriWild and verified under Verra’s Grouped Landscape Management framework, the project will work closely with local communities, land stewards, and conservation managers to prevent overgrazing, enhance grassland regeneration, and increase market access for livestock and wildlife products. It has the potential to remove 10 million tCO₂e across more than 300 000ha, support more than 10 000 people, and provide habitat protection for more than 1 200 endemic species and critical megafauna.

Kenya: the Udongo Mzuri Biochar Carbon Project, led by Women in Climate Change & Renewable Energy, converts organic waste and invasive water hyacinth into biochar, with each ton sequestering three tCO₂e. With seven hubs planned over the next decade, the project targets approximately 20 000 tCO₂e per hub annually, linking production to 10 000 cookstoves per year while achieving a 20% increase in soil moisture retention.

Nigeria: the Ago Owu Forest Reserve Carbon Project in Osun aims to restore and protect 23 000 ha of degraded tropical high forest, creating more than 500 nursery jobs, formalising forest stewardship contracts for residents in the buffer zone, and sequestering carbon at scale through replanting and forest protection. The project is a collaboration between aDryada/Noblesse Green Energy, the Nigerian Presidency, and the National Council on Climate Change.

Source: farmersweekly.co.za

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DEFENDING LAND AND ENVIRONMENTAL RIGHTS

Court Alert: Court Grants Bail to Jailed Defender and Wife.

Published

9 months ago

on

July 21, 2025

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By Witness Radio team.

After a significant legal engagement, a magistrate court in Kiryandongo District has decided to release a community land rights defender and his wife on bail. This decision comes after they spent 40 days in prison.

Olupot James, a community land rights defender from Kikungulu village, Kibeeka Parish, Kapundo Sub-county, in Kiryandongo District, and his wife, Apio Sarah, were charged with malicious damage to property on June 5th, 2025, and were remanded to different prisons, including Dyang Prison.

The arrest of the defender and his wife has had a profound impact on their four children, leaving them in a state of grief and pain. They were left without parental care in a house surrounded by the sugar plantation.

According to the prosecution, the duo allegedly uprooted sugarcane plants belonging to Kiryandongo Sugar Limited and replaced them with maize on land neighboring the defender’s home. The multinational claims ownership of the land.

The Penal Code Act, Cap. Section 312 (1) of Uganda states that any person who willfully and unlawfully destroys or damages any property commits an offence and is liable on conviction to up to five years’ imprisonment.

Since 2017, Olupot and several other community land defenders have been in and out of prison, a testament to their unwavering resistance against illegal land evictions. Their resilience is a source of inspiration for many. Thousands of families claim they have lost their land to the multinational without following any law, without receiving any compensation, and without being offered an alternative settlement.

Through Witness Radio Legal Aid Chambers, the duo was granted a non-cash bail of two million Shillings, and their case has been fixed for hearing on July 28th, 2025.

The children, who have been enduring the absence of their parents, are now experiencing a sense of relief and joy as the family is reunited.

Related posts:

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DEFENDING LAND AND ENVIRONMENTAL RIGHTS

A land rights defender and his wife have been arrested, charged, and sent to prison.

Published

9 months ago

on

July 16, 2025

By

By Witness Radio team.

Kiryandongo District – A community land rights Defender at Nyamutende Cell in Kiryandongo District, and his wife have been sent to prison by a magistrate’s court in Kiryandongo District, Witness Radio confirms.

Olupot James and his wife, Apio Sarah, were charged with malicious damage to property after a multinational company, Kiryandongo Sugar Limited, accused them of destroying its crops. The area police later picked them up.

Since 2017, Kiryandongo Sugar Limited, a subsidiary of Rai Holdings Private Limited, has been among the three multinationals that have forcibly displaced over thirty-five thousand (35,000) people in Kiryandongo District without following due diligence or offering alternative settlement options.

Community land Rights defender Olupot James and his wife Apio Sarah are amongst a few remaining families that resisted the company’s violent eviction and repression. Their home is currently trapped in the middle of the sugar plantation after they lost their land, which was dug up to the house by the multinational. Despite their peaceful resistance, Olupot has been arrested, charged, and imprisoned more than six times, a clear indication of the injustice they are facing.

Since late May this year, the duo has been reporting to Kiryandongo police station on Criminal Case Number CRB No. 316/2025, until they were arrested and aligned before the court and imprisoned. Olupot was remanded to Dyang while Apio is in Kiryandongo prison.

The state alleges that Olupot and Apio committed the offence of malicious damage to property in Kikungulu village, Kiryandongo District, a region with a complex history of land-related conflicts.

The Witness Radio’s legal aid team is monitoring the case and will appear in court to apply for their bail.

Related posts:

After being tortured by the army, the land rights defender is charged and remanded to prison Land rights defenders charged with criminal trespass, released on police bond. Court releases a tortured community land rights defender on bail Breaking! Land rights defender charged with setting fire to crops, released on bond Breaking: A community land rights defender in the Kiryandongo district is charged with assault and released on a cash bail.
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