Presentation short abstract

The paper focuses on the tendency of carbon offsetting incentives to generate and increase plantation logics at the local level. The research specifically targets a major reforestation projet implemented by the WWF Kenya in Kinangop Plateau (lake Naivasha water basin, Kenya).

Presentation long abstract

This paper investigates conservation and development interventions based on a multiscalar approach and their ability to effectively address issues relating to climate change and its effects on local communities and ecosystems of the South. It focuses specifically on a reforestation project implemented by the WWF in lake Naivasha water basin, Kenya (Rift Valley). The research builds on qualitative methods that focus on the upper catchment area, called Kinangop Plateau. It focuses on one major lock-in preventing the emergence of strong partnerships for improved environmental protection in the Global South : the tendency of carbon offsetting incentives to generate and increase plantation logics at the local level. We shall therefore examine the ways in which this reforestation project reveals and perpetuates neo-colonial patterns in development and conservation interventions implemented by large environmental NGOs.

Our aim is to put in relief the processes by which local ecosystems, mainly original highland grasslands on the plateau, are being slowly replaced by reforestation initiatives. The financial apsect of carbon offsetting interventions for local communities in the South seams to accentuate the diversion of these ‘conservation’ incentives by market logics which as a result tend to increase the pressure on land availability and the conversion of natural non-forest habitats into planted exotic forests (mainly cypress and pine trees). Specifically in the case of the Kinangop Plateau, the WWF’s intervention seams to be yet another driver of environmental degradation and of land conversion at the local level, for the sake of carbon storage and climate mitigation.