MEDIA FOR CHANGE NETWORK
Africa’s carbon deals and the hidden tenure challenge
I. New pressure on land?
Observers marked 2023 as a “make-or-break” year for voluntary carbon markets and a key “ inflection point ” for their role in addressing climate change and global deforestation. Proponents highlight that forest carbon projects channel much-needed funds towards forest protection and are pivotal to climate change mitigation. On the other hand, critics emphasize that carbon deals set incentives for overcrediting. Moreover, carbon offsetting allows the biggest emitters to simply outsource their climate mitigation efforts with potentially adverse impacts for affected communities .
The debate was fueled when several large-scale carbon offset projects were reported in Sub-Saharan Africa just before the UN Climate Change Conference COP 28 took place in Dubai in 2023. The sheer dimensions of the planned projects bring back memories of the last major wave of large-scale land deals in 2011 — notably, memories of evictions of local communities and Indigenous Peoples, loss of livelihoods and a lack of free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) practices.
2007/2008
The global financial crisis unleashed.
2010/2011
A major wave of land investments for food and biofuel production in across Africa and the Global South.
2022/2023
Seventeen years on, the pressure on land never eased with a new wave of deals related to carbon offsets, green hydrogen schemes, and other “green investments”
Since 2015, fewer deals have been concluded due to factors like stricter land policies and declining support for biofuels. Based on Land Matrix data, the number of concluded and failed deals is under-reported in this illustration because deals with no information about the year of negotiation are excluded. On the other hand, intended deals are slightly over-reported, as some concluded deals with unknown dates are included as ‘intended.’
Picture: Demonstrators at COP 25 in Madrid, December 2019, against carbon offsetting schemes, advocating for equitable climate solutions and rejecting market-based approaches.
In 2023, four land-sector organizations came together, with support from the European Commission, to strengthen the central role of data in securing equitable land rights for sustainable development, poverty eradication, peace and the protection of human rights. The Land Data Partnership , which includes the International Land Coalition , the Land Portal Foundation , the Land Matrix Initiative , and Prindex , aims to improve the complementarity of global land data initiatives and to identify opportunities to hold key actors responsible.
Organisations collaborating in the Land Data Partnership
At first glance, carbon offsetting projects appear to be win-win-win deals for local communities, governments, and the environment, and a key strategy in mitigating climate change. Yet, if we look more closely the question arises: how much can communities benefit if they face insecure land rights and weak land governance systems?
This data story explores in detail the consequences of climate change mitigation for land tenure, and vice versa. Zooming into several case studies in East and West Africa, it highlights the dimensions of tenure security and how people-centered, inclusive and effective land governance systems can help manage the influx of carbon offset projects.
A group of women in Kenya’s Kasigau Corridor, supported by the REDD+ Project manager Wildlife Works, gathers to create sustainable crafts and strengthen their community livelihoods.
Civil society organizations, as well as policymakers, are concerned about the pressures exerted by large-scale carbon deals and the corresponding threats to the land rights of local populations. In this context, Kenya provides an important example. According to Land Matrix and LANDex data, conflicts were reported in 57% of all large-scale land acquisition deals in Kenya.
“The Mau is Kenya’s biggest forest. The Ogiek people are on the front line of a climate solution that is used to justify ongoing evictions and emission. In our view it’s clear that the interest shown by offsetting companies is prompting the Kenyan Government to assert its control.”
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