About a million hectares. Forest equal to the area of Uusimaa.
The government of small Liberia plans to hand over such a large area to a company based in one of the world’s largest oil nations.
Liberia, located in West Africa, has been rubbing shoulders with a company founded by the Dubai royal family. Dubai is part of the United Arab Emirates located in the Persian Gulf.
The Dubai-based company Blue Carbon is getting the rights to almost 10 percent of the entire land area of Liberia.
Liberia’s forests are traded as follows: Forests bind carbon, and the project produces so-called emission units. They are sold to buyers who want to offset their climate-warming fossil emissions elsewhere.
Liberia is giving a Dubai-based company exclusive rights to sell emission units for 30 years.
The draft agreement is an example of how many African countries now count their money on the need for large polluters to compensate for their emissions.
Arrangement however, receives harsh criticism in Liberia and abroad.
– The government seems to hand over its own rights and the rights of local communities to the company, Jonathan Yiah says to .
Yiah is a forest expert at the Sustainable Development Institute in Liberia. He has closely followed the stages of the contract.
Is there some kind of land grab going on in Liberia?
You can say that, Yiah replies.
“Makes people even poorer”
In Liberia, despite the logging, there are still large areas of forest left.
Almost half of the approximately five million Liberians derives a large part of its livelihood from the forest. For example, they cultivate or collect various products in the forest such as fruit, nuts and honey or receive income from logging.
Now Blue Carbon from Dubai would be coming to these countries.
The company is getting access to forest areas from different parts of Liberia. Almost half of them are currently classified as protected. With the agreement, the rest will also become a protected area.
As a result, the local people would not be able to use the lands as before.
– This makes people poorer than before, instead of benefiting them, Jonathan Yiah says in a phone interview.
Liberia has new, so-called progressive land laws. They should guarantee local communities many rights to manage land and forest resources even when there are no official certificates of land ownership.
According to the law, the government should also obtain the consent of the communities for its actions so that people have had time to familiarize themselves with the matter.
This is not what is happening now, people are being taken away from their rights without even being heard from, says Yiah.
The Blue Carbon company promises to employ Liberians according to the draft contract. According to Yiah, it is unclear what the jobs in the forest projects could be that the residents of the areas would benefit from.
The draft agreement has been shared with some of Liberia’s international donors and civil society actors. has also seen one version. asked Blue Carbon for a comment, but did not receive a response.
African countries hope for the jackpot
The so-called voluntary carbon market may soon even exist a business worth tens of billions of euros. This is what large consulting companies have assessed.
Many African countries now want to seize the opportunity and get investments. It is partly due to the fact that the potential return of the African market has been hugely hyped, says an expert from the organization that follows the coal market.
– Such numbers entice some countries to think that they can make good money, says the policy officer Gilles Dufrasne From the Brussels-based Carbon Market Watch organization to .
However, it is unlikely that African countries would get the kind of returns from the projects as in some reports in their countries, says Dufrasne.
According to him, the danger is that countries will now jump on the moving train and give up their natural resources without getting a proper benefit from them.
“The United Arab Emirates is polishing its image”
The Dubai-based company has been climate shopping in several African countries this year. In addition to Liberia, at least Tanzania and Zambia have agreed with Blue Carbon on forest projects.
The United Arab Emirates will host the UN climate conference at the end of the year. It has been accused of using the opportunity to polish their public image. Newspaper According to Le Monde the forestry agreement of Liberia should also be announced in connection with the meeting.
The contract smells like greenwashing, says a group of non-governmental organizations from different countries.
It is not yet known where the Dubai-based company intends to sell the emission units. However, the organizations suspect that the purpose is to compensate for the emissions of the Dubai rulers’ own fossil businesses. At the same time, the company says it is curbing climate change.
The United Arab Emirates has set a net zero goal by 2050. It is investing in renewable energy and has declared sustainability as this year’s theme.
At the same time, it is accelerating the production of fossil fuels. Publishing climate statistics According to the Climate Action Tracker The UAE’s climate action is insufficient, and achieving its climate goals seems impossible.
– If a country intends to both expand its fossil production and reduce its emissions, there is a fundamental gap in between. It means that the country is forced to use methods like compensation or carbon capture, says Gilles Dufrasne of Carbon Market Watch.
The United Arab Emirates is under the climate conference also criticized, for example, for thatthat the chairman of the meeting is the CEO of the state oil company. According to the British newspaper The Guardian the company has, among other things, had access to the e-mails of the office of the climate meeting.
Conflicts are feared in Liberia
In Liberia, the question is who will benefit from the rapidly progressing agreement.
Elections will be held in a couple of months. Many speculate that the government and the president, who is also known as a football star George Weah have needed money for their re-election campaign.
– Otherwise, you can’t understand why the government is undermining the rights it itself established by law five years ago, Jonathan Yiah describes people’s thoughts.
According to the draft agreement, the Liberian government will receive a small slice of the revenue from emission units, of which it should give a portion to local communities. There is currently no information on the exact sums.
There is an agreement in Dubai praised for protecting Liberia’s forests. Forest expert Jonathan Yiah estimates that protecting certain forests only shifts the logging pressure elsewhere.
He also fears that the agreement will sow discord in Liberia, which is still recovering from a civil war that ended 20 years ago.
– As a result of the protection, those who made their living from the forests have to move to new areas. Conflicts over land can arise between newcomers and old residents, says Yiah.
You can discuss the topic until Monday evening, August 28, 2023, at 11 p.m.
Listen on the Uutispodcast to see how the autumn climate meeting goes when it’s chaired by the CEO of an oil company: