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Paper short abstract:

Oil extractive activities of multinational corporations in Nigeria’s Niger Delta have led to massive oil pollution of the fragile ecosystem of the region. This paper examines the impacts of oil pollution on local species and the indigenous food culture of the people in the Niger Delta.

Paper long abstract:

Oil extractive activities of multinational corporations in Nigeria’s Niger Delta have spawned a major ecological crisis, due to the destructive impacts of massive oil pollution on the fragile ecosystem. This has led to gradual displacement of the rich environmental resources that sustain traditional livelihood of farming and fishing of the people. While the oil-induced negative environmental and livelihood impacts have been well documented in extant literature, the impacts on species, and food culture have been understudied. This paper examines the impacts of oil pollution on local species and the indigenous food culture. Based on field studies, this paper illustrates that incessant oil spills and gas flaring have led to significant decline and loss of variety of food crops, including special type of cocoyam known as “Mama coco.” animal like Manatee, and variety of fishes such as moon and scale fish, vital to the indigenous food culture of the people. It has also displaced the age-long cultural practices used in farming and fishing, disrupting traditional festival for celebrating bountiful harvest. The displacement of species and food culture, along with the poor compensation practices of oil companies result in violent resistance involving pipeline vandalism, oil theft and artisanal oil refining that worsen oil pollution. This amplified the ecological crisis, in ways that worsen the damages to the ecosystem and may ultimately result in total species and cultural extinction. This portends a major threat to the survival of the people and the sustainability of their fragile environment.

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Paper short abstract:

Extractive industry such as gold mining is believed to have to higher contribution to Africa’s economy. However, it has had detrimental environmental and health impacts. Laga-dambi gold mining industry of Ethiopia is a typical example in this regard, with far-reaching environmental impacts.

Paper long abstract:

The extractive industry, particularly gold mining is considered as a panacea economic development of Africa. Although this sector brought a remarkable growth in Africa’s economy, its environmental, socio-cultural and health impacts are thought to be considerably high. It has significantly shaped the African landscape, with profound impacts on ecosystem. This paper intends to shed light on the environmental and health impacts of extractive industry in Ethiopia with a focus on Laga dambi gold mining, which has been operated by MIDROC Investment Group for over two and half decades. It explores the pollution and health crisis of extractive practices through the analysis of the level of heavy metals in stream water, sediment and agricultural soil in the vicinity of large-scale cyanidation gold mining operation. The paper finds out that toxic chemicals polluted the ecosystem and resulted in horrendous health impact on local communities. disposed from the mine are. Mean concentrations of heavy metals such as Sn, Cr, Cd, and Hg recorded in stream water and sediment were highly above international standards. In general, stream water, sediment and agricultural soils were found to have elevated amount of heavy metals as compared to the control sites, particularly for Hg and As, which are commonly associated with gold mines. This entails that the local have been exposed to these toxic metals, violating their right to health and clean and safe environment. Despite a temporary closure of the mine due to public protest in 2018, the Ethiopia government reopened it without addressing the risks.

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Paper short abstract:

The energy transitions require huge volumes of critical minerals. This causes expansion in the extractive sector, which brings its own risks and opportunities. Such risks need fundamental shifts in governance structures. This study explores potential areas where such changes can be instituted.

Paper long abstract:

The highly mineral-intensive energy transition and the ensuing rising demand for the so-called critical minerals are causing shifts in the extractive industry. It is also exposing producer countries to new challenges and opportunities. especially in Africa. For instance, it provides colossal economic development opportunities. However, it may culminate in cases of environmental and social injustice in the form of recreation and reinforcement of global inequalities, the marginalization of indigenous and land-based communities, land grabs and displacements, conflicts, and corruption. To depart from the legacy of poor natural resource governance and the resource curse common to the continent, fundamental decisions must be made to ensure that resources benefit the people. An overhaul of governance and legal frameworks and the establishment of new institutions, systems, and actors are desperately needed if the transition is to be just and sustainable. The research qualitatively analyzes extractive industry governance in the energy transition era. Using Zimbabwe's lithium industry, the study explores areas for improvement to prevent extracivism and ensure a just and sustainable energy transition. In this study, it is maintained that a business-as-usual mode in the extractive sector derails the achievement of a just transition as well as related Sustainable Development Goals by a wide margin.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Paper short abstract:

The study examines the commodification of the tangible cultural heritage of Konso society, the Waaka, into commodities, resulting in a change in its sociocultural significance. It also investigates how commodification is perceived by local people and how it shapes landscape conservation.

Paper long abstract:

In 2011, the Konso Cultural Landscape received prestigious recognition for being designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, acknowledging its outstanding universal value. This designation has resulted in the widespread popularization of the landscape. Nonetheless, the Konso people take pride in their culture due to inscription, the interplay of various factors poses significant risks to the authenticity of the landscape. One of these factors is the rise in mass tourism and the subsequent commodification of cultural heritage, particularly Waaka (a wooden sculpture of heroes) in response to the demands of the tourism market. This study is conceptually informed by the perspectives of political economy, critical heritage studies, and cultural commodification. The study employed a qualitative approach and ethnographic methodology over an extended period of 2023, which involved observations, qualitative interviews, and discussions with local and cultural leaders. Specifically, the aim was to investigate how commodification is perceived among local people and how it shapes landscape conservation. The study shows that Waakas have been increasingly looted, commercialized, and traded by local, and national actors and international tourists. This study notes that the changes observed about the Waakas have led to the deterioration of the authenticity of the heritage. Elderly people perceive commodification as destructive, while youth who are largely engaged in such businesses welcome commodification as a basis for improving their livelihoods. This study showed that the commodification of the Waakas in Konso is inseparable from the rise of mass tourism and its economic impact, often disregarding the sociocultural importance and authenticity.

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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.

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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?

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Paper short abstract:

This article examines the operations of informal small-scale miners, exploring the patronage networks that exist between themselves, connected business moguls, and the political elites. It explores how this intricate web of relations has led to violence in the Shurugwi District of Zimbabwe.

Paper long abstract:

Zimbabwe has, in recent times, witnessed an upsurge in violent clashes among artisanal gold miners, and these clashes have often led to fatalities. Commonly referred to as Makorokoza, small-scale artisanal gold miners have often been involved in violent contests over gold mining claims which have instilled a sense of insecurity among rival artisanal miners, prospective new entrants to the industry, and citizens residing in areas nearby the mines. Within this context, this article examines the operations of informal small-scale miners, exploring the patronage networks that exist between themselves, connected business moguls, and the political elites, and how this intricate web of relations has led to violence in the mineral rich Shurugwi District of Zimbabwe. Engaging relevant literature on resource extraction in the global south, particularly Richard Auty’s resource curse thesis and de Certeau’s theory of ‘the everyday’ and drawing from ordinary people and miners’ oral recollections, lived experiences, and written primary sources, the study demonstrates that underlying this violence by and among local artisanal miners are broader contestations between politically exposed business tycoons. Hence, localized violence among rival groups has been a microcosm of broader economic agendas by invisible but very powerful players. Moreover, by delineating the operations of these cartels and how they contribute to conflict and violence in communities, the article argues that the mining cartels and networks have also profited from the vague legal framework governing the industry.

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Paper short abstract:

The state's urge to re-territorialize space and displace communities from their lands is evident throughout the extractive logic that produces and reproduces unjust development futures. The study provides a political ecology lens to view how Zimbabwe's lithium mining shapes the everyday.

Paper long abstract:

In Zimbabwe's post-colonial state, natural resource frontiers have primarily mirrored a contentious terrain of political power consolidation and expressions of asymmetrical power dynamics between nature, society, and the state.The collaboration between the state, traditional leadership, private business, and extractive multinational companies has placed the local communities in a precarious position where they are vulnerable to exploitation and forced displacement. The state's urge to re-territorialize space and displace local communities from their lands is evident throughout the extractive logic that produces and reproduces unjust development futures and social-ecological catastrophes.

With an emphasis on lithium mining, the study aims to provide a decolonial and political ecology lens through which to view how Zimbabwe's climate-smart ('green' extractivism) ambitions and practices are materializing. Reflecting on the everyday practices, policies, and laws that are shaped by state power, capital, and violence is producing a new surge of ‘green’ authoritarianism and destructive neo-liberal developmentalism.

The following core question will direct this study: Do 'green' extractivism, neo-liberal developmentalism, and state power intersect to create and perpetuate geographies of marginalities and exclusions through green enclosures? If so, how?

The research attempts to counter the Western universality of knowledge hegemony by forwarding, countering, and reasserting African decolonial emancipatory scholarship in development studies. It will achieve this through a participatory scholar-activist approach and by trying to redefine neoliberal norms like development.

The study uses participatory decolonial methodologies to allow for a nuanced understanding of the extractive, ‘dispossessive’ histories and everyday realities of capitalist nature commodification.

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Paper short abstract:

This study compares the presence of Western capitalists and the Chinese in Africa’s extractive industry with special focus on the solid minerals using Nigeria as a case study. It draws comparison between the raison detre and impact of Western and Chinese presence in Nigeria’s solid minerals industry

Paper long abstract:

The European scramble for Africa`s minerals continued even after colonialism. However, what appears to be new in the current situation is the emergence of non-Western players in the struggle for the control of Africa’s resources by some other countries, led by China. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, Africa witnessed unprecedented rise in foreign direct investments in the mining sector from both Western and non-Western actors. Nigeria is a beneficiary of this FDI in Africa. China’s growing demand for mineral commodities combined with Europe’s eagerness to maintain its traditional sphere of influence in Africa have led to an international race for Africa’s minerals. This paper appraises the investments of both the West and China in the Nigeria’s solid minerals industry. It draws comparison between the raison detre and impact of their presence in Nigeria’s solid minerals industry. Nigeria, rich in over 34 solid minerals had depended on crude oil, which was managed by European extractive capitalism since the second decade of independence. However, the need to diversify the revenue base of the Nigerian economy by diversifying towards the solid minerals sector gave China the impetus to cash in on this necessity in the Nigerian extractive industry. The paper underscores the variegated features of both the Chinese and Western extractive capitalism in Nigeria. Using Nigeria's case, it is possible to draw comparisons between Chinese relations with Africa and Africa’s past relationship with European colonial powers, which exploited the continent’s natural resources but failed to encourage more labor-intensive industry.