Paper short abstract:

We explore resource extraction in the Sacred Forests of Coastal Kenya and its impacts on people living in the UNESCO World Heritage Site. Land use, land tenure and local attitudes changes over the last 40 years show that sacred forests are a new frontier for extraction and capitalistic encroachment.

Paper long abstract:

African landscapes are currently undergoing rapid land-use change, driven by a combination of factors including population growth, agricultural and industrial expansion, mega-infrastructure development, changing lifestyles, and colonial legacies. The Mijikenda Kaya forests located in coastal Kenya, once revered and considered untouchable, have come under massive pressure in recent decades from logging, land grabbing, and conversion for industrial use and infrastructure development.

This research uses qualitative methods to investigate the political ecology of resource extraction and its impacts on the culture and local attitudes of the people living in the Mijikenda Kaya Forest, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The paper uses satellite imagery to map changes in land use. It documents empirical evidence of changing land tenure in and around the sacred forests over the last 40 years (1980-2020). We explore consumption patterns and the market for forest resources, using the case study of Kaya Rabai, one of the nine sacred forests.

The results show that sacred forests have become the new frontier for resource extraction. Satellite imagery results show massive encroachment by capitalist investors, a significant reduction of forest cover, with selected species being targeted, and a constellation of new infrastructure including houses, roads, and electricity power lines. Plans to build a superhighway and a standard gauge railway line near the sacred forest will bring further changes. The recognition of the sacred forests as World Heritage Sites and National Monuments seems to have done little to stop the ongoing destruction of the sacred forests.

Paper short abstract:

For centuries, the sacred Mijikenda Kaya forests of coastal Kenya have preserved a rich cultural and biological heritage under the protection of local communities using indigenous cultural practices. Nevertheless, the Kaya forests have undergone massive conversion driven by high demand for resources

Paper long abstract:

For centuries, the sacred Mijikenda Kaya forests of coastal Kenya have preserved a rich cultural and biological heritage under the protection of local communities using indigenous cultural practices. In the 1980s, nine of these forests were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in recognition of their high bio-cultural value. They were also declared national monuments, signaling a conscious effort to protect them. Nevertheless, the Kaya forests have undergone massive conversion, driven by the high demand for raw materials for infrastructure development to feed a rapidly growing urban population and the country's Vision 2030, which prioritizes infrastructure and connectivity as a driver of economic growth. In this study, we analyze the extraction of resources in Kaya Kauma, commercial mining of iron ore, ballast and manganese, and associated impacts on sacred forest use, indigenous culture and conservation norms using satellite imagery data and interviews. We also look at the impact of blasting on schools and emergence of a mining-related micro-economy. We use a political economy framework to explain the ongoing changes.

We found that the Kaya forest is surrounded by twenty two multinational companies, mainly Chinese and Indian, which have left the landscape dotted with huge pits and increased degradation over the last decades. The ongoing developments in the area create a significant threat to the forest. The communities still regard the Kaya forest as highly important. The conversion of sacred forests makes us rethink the value of World Heritage inscription, and highlights the threats to local commons and cultural landscapes.

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores unregulated diamond mining activities in the Northern Cape province of South Africa after 1994. It highlights how the so-called ''illegal'' diamond miners struggle to access diamonds on land that they claim rightfully bequeathed to them by their ancestor.

Paper long abstract:

This study seeks to explore unregulated diamond mining in the Northern Cape Province of South Africa after 1994. ‘Illegal’ miners operating outside the parameters of the country’s main mining legislation are known as zama-zamas, a Zulu word which means “try and try again” (Madimu 2022). This name depicts their daily struggles punctuated by hard labour and regular confrontation with private mining capital and security agents. My study will examine the work of zama-zamas in the Northern Cape Province and explore the intricate details of their work routine as well as their plight to earn legal recognition. The Northern Cape Province has always occupied an integral position in South Africa’s mining history since the discovery of diamonds in Kimberley in 1867. Since then, diamond mining remained in the hands of private mining capital, epitomized by De Beers Consolidated Mines. There is a paucity of literature on unregulated diamond mining in South Africa since available related literature focuses on ‘illegal’ gold mining. This study uses Nathan Andrews concept of ‘digging for survival and/or digging for justice.’ The concept mirrors the prevailing scenario in the Northern Cape Province where indigenous communities like those in Richtersveld, a diamond rich area, have had their title to land (which was expropriated by the colonial government in the 1920s) reinstated by a 2003 court judgement, influenced by the country’s land reform programme, yet this restitution did not include ownership of diamond mining claims which remained in the hands of big mining capital, supported by the state.

Paper short abstract:

We map and compare value chains of sand from rural harvesting sites to city markets and sites of large scale construction in order to understand the networks of actors who control the lucrative business and whether sand displays extractivist characteristics typical of many other minerals.

Paper long abstract:

Urbanization and large infrastructure projects hinge upon the availability of massive quantities of sand. Despite being the planet’s most mined mineral, sand has until recently slipped the attention of critical scholarship of mineral extraction. To some extent, there is good reason for it. The sand frontier is a widely distributed space that evades tight control of extractive agents. Due to the wide availability of sand in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa and its ‘low value’ in relation to weight, for long there was little incentive to commodify sand. What is more, the harvesting of sand has for a long time been rather uncontroversial. However, the speed of urbanization and the scale of grand infrastructure projects rolled out across the continent in the last two decades upended the imaginary of sand as a ‘socially thick’ development mineral. Excessive sand removal has made visible the depletion of ecosystem, the destruction of rural livelihoods and profits made in the extraction and trade of sand that benefits actors elsewhere as features of another resource frontier.

Based on ongoing empirical work on sand extraction and trade in Kenya, in this paper we map and compare the value chains of sand from rural harvesting sites to the sand markets in Nairobi and Mombasa to the sites of large construction and infrastructure works. This exercise yields important knowledge about the networks of actors who control the lucrative sand business in one of the fastest urbanizing countries on the continent.

Paper short abstract:

Using the energy justice lens, we focus on the Lake Turkana Wind power project to show how social and environmental justice concerns have been overlooked in energy expansion in Kenya; and how poor and marginalised communities in whose locality electricity is produced are still living in darkness.

Paper long abstract:

In Kenya, although the current movement towards energy transition in the forms of renewable energy sources (hydro, wind, solar and geothermal) may meet SDGs on sustainability and climate actions, other SDGs, in particular those focusing on social inequality, peace, justice and good governance structures are threatened. This study focuses on Marsabit, a County in Northern Kenya serving as home to the Lake Turkana Wind Power – the largest wind farm in the continent that supplies power to a plant near the capital city, Nairobi. Land-related contestations and conflicts linked to the wind farm have been well documented. However, a focus on community justice in terms of fairness in process as well as the distribution of costs and benefits across the host communities is yet to receive sufficient scholarly attention. It is against this backdrop that the study draws from the energy justice lens - distributive, procedural and recognition (in)justices - to explore societal concerns linked to the wind farm. We find that first, social and environmental justice concerns are often overlooked in this drive for energy expansion. Second, the costs and benefits of hosting the wind project are unevenly distributed between communities, particularly as the key promise to provide grid-connected electricity to the host communities remain unfulfilled. The study submits by asking how just is the ‘just transition’ when poor and marginalised communities in whose locality electricity is produced are still living in darkness?