Sub-theme 6. The drama of the grabbed commons
Panel 6.10.
The Drama of Crude Oil and the Commons
The establishment of an oil and gas sector in the Eastern Africa requires setting up of distribution, extraction and processing infrastructure. As a consequence, community lands surrounding the project sites suffer a considerable acquisition of common pool resources due to the extractive activities as well as from speculative investment. The exploitation of crude oil is often presented as an industry with a small land-footprint and as one not prone to large scale land acquisition — arguable, fracturing further decreases the chances of displacement. But the impact of resource extraction usually extends beyond the active mining area and affects and fragments outlying commons, such as water, pasture, migratory corridors and spiritual sites. Some, who no longer see the value of communal ownership, see opportunities through the influx of financial returns in the form of compensation, infrastructural development, jobs and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) projects. However, these actual and anticipated transformations of commons concern local livelihoods as this may lead to disintegration of their social and cultural cohesion. This growing cleavage between winners and losers invariably increases tensions, with existing legal frameworks often limited in providing solutions to mitigate against these concerns. Much of this impact is usually overlooked or ignored.
In this panel, we examine the social impacts of the acquisition of commons associated with oil production. Additionally, we wish to discuss the existing plurality of legal frameworks that are expected to exasperate or mitigate these impacts, while also examining how local communities renegotiate belonging, ownership and the hope for a better future.
1. Commons, Oil, Displacement & Compensation: Getting the Equation right
Moi University, Kenya
Compensation, in instances of social displacement, runs the risk of failure when socio-environmental remediation programmes fail to take cognizance of the symbolic meanings that communities attach to “nature” and to cultural artefacts, often the target of such compensation. This interplay is what is at the heart of ethno-ecological studies.
Compensational practices borrow heavily from economics and accounting, from which compensation tools (such as: i) the comparative approach, ii) the Gross replacement cost approach iii) the residual method and iv) the profit method) have been derived. These tools, however, pay very little attention to non-pecuniary losses, which are at the heart of compensational conflict. It is argued that for compensation to be “just”, it must fulfill the tenets of Pareto Efficiency, Kanbur’s cost-benefit analysis (which hinges on weighted sums of gains and losses—this was further refined by Pearce and Swanson’s Willingness to Accept, and, Willingness To Pay principle), Radin’s commodification, to McLeod’s principle of Compensation Surplus—all which have been criticised by some as inadequate—to new thinking advanced by Lehavi and Licht (that roots for “special-purpose development project”, that separates takings from just compensation).
The difficulty with compensation is balancing the concerns of economics (of compensation) and the social realities on the ground. This is often what breeds the most conflict in mining enterprises. This article explores this dilemma and examines the case of Tullow oil among the Turkana pastoralists in Kenya
2. Crude Oil for Water
Graduate Institute Geneva, Switzerland
Turkana in northern Kenya, due to its geographical position, topography, climate and soil, classifies as semi-arid. Rainfall occurs during the long rainy seasons (March – July) and the short rainy season (October – November). However, the regularity of rainfall has lately become unpredictable and resulted in the declaration of a drought by the president of Kenya in February 2022.
Many people who live within Turkana’s oil exploration areas believe the absence of the rain started with oil exploitation.
“This place was a seasonal camp due to the water under the dry riverbed. We used to dig holes in the riverbed, every family managed one. We came with the livestock, the women fetched, while the men protected them” I was told, while we were looking at the remains of hand-dug wells, carefully protected with thorny, wooden branches. They are no longer used since the main operator Tullow Oil established a water pump and several tanks in the area in 2012. However, the new water system declared to be part of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) mainly led to the oil wells. Water is essential for the extraction of crude, used during drilling to lubricate and cool the drill or to create pressure through vapour. For the management of the water tanks within the surrounding villages, the company established a water committee, which was supposed to manage and maintain the pipes and create ‘ownership’. Ignoring former forms of commons management, the artificially established committee was haunted by corruption and politics.
3. Commons Oil Cooperate Social Risponsibility and Human Rights: Case of The Oil-rich Lokichar Basin
Kenya National Commission on Human Rigths, Kenya
Exploration, discovery, and exploitation of oil have both positive and negative impacts on the local community human rights. Some of these impacts include but are not limited to environmental, social, and economic aspects. Oil exploration in Kenya began in the 1950s with Shell and British Petroleum (BP) oil companies conducting the first survey. In 2012 potential commercially viable oil resources were discovered in Turkana County by Tullow Oil Plc. The discovery of oil promised such hope as the Kenya government announced had made a major breakthrough in oil exploration in the South Lokichar Basin and it was reported that four trucks left Lokichar (Ngamia 8 oil fields) ferrying crude oil to the Kenya Petroleum Refinery in Changamwe and barely a month after the launch of Early Oil Pilot Scheme (EOPS) in Turkana, Tullow Oil Plc. halted operations as they came under pressure from locals on several issues on Cooperate Social Responsibility(CSR). However, oil drilling is supposed to create economic development and improve of living standards to the people living around the mine areas. Currently, poverty levels among the locals have not improved and the effects of environmental pollution from oil firms are clearly evident, influencing the wellbeing of the community. This article therefore sought to examine the influence of oil drilling on the wellbeing of the Turkana community in Lokichar Location. The objectives of this paper is to; assess the influence of oil firm’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), environmental pollution and land acquisition on the wellbeing of the Turkana community.
Key words: Exploration, crude oil, community, poverty, Commons and Cooperate Social Responsibility
4. (Dis)Entangled Futures: Youth Subjectivities in the emerging energy frontier in Mtwara, Tanzania
Graduate Institute Geneva, Switzerland
The 2012 discovery of offshore gas in Tanzania brought forth expectations of national economic growth but more so for the marginal region of Mtwara. Entangled in these promissory expectations were youth from the region who were propped up as the key beneficiaries for the hoped-for employment options that would become available. Embedded within the speculative success of the industry were young people’s lives and their hopes for a more secure future as they navigated their social-economic trajectories associated with adulthood.
Whilst the extraction of other energy sources such as oil is often presented as one with a small-land footprint, offshore gas extraction is even more so. Contemporary, offshore oil and gas extraction processes operate in spatial self-sustaining enclaves that rely less on human labour and its infrastructure often lies out in the open sea away from human sight, as such contributing to its physical disentanglement from host communities. The intangibility of the product (gas), its extractive process and spatial distance from land pose further questions as to who really are the ‘commons’.
Despite these enclaving characteristics, the non-linear development of the industry has had profound impacts on the individual lives of young people in the communities closest to the extraction sites. Through an exploration of their then aspirations, and lived experiences following the gas discoveries, this paper analyzes the personal and social impacts of the industry, despite its physical disentanglement from communities, in how it has impacted young people as they seek societal and economical markers associated with adulthood.
5. “Kiwaak nakaad!”: The politics of oil, land, oil revenue and elite capture in Turkana County, Kenya
Turkana University College, Kenya
Political promises and activism play a critical role in a politician’s bag of tricks during electoral campaigns. In the just concluded 2022 Kenya general elections, activism revolving around oil revenues was extensively used in Turkana county to lure voters to support any one of the competing political formations. Oil became a lively topic of discussion since its discovery in 2012. One slogan that captured the imagination of the populace was the slogan, “kiwaak nakaad” (meaning “put our revenue for each household in the card”). Through this slogan, political parties promised their supporters that they would ensure that each household receives its portion of the expected oil revenues through an automated smart card (ATM) known as ‘akaad nalegem’. This card would be issued and used by every household for economic transactions (in other words, it would act as a debit card). The popularity of this slogan signaled the expectations of the commons to derive benefits from the oil industry. On the other hand, observers opined that the political elite were not sincere in their promises but that they only voiced their support for this slogan as they were only intending to use it as a political vehicle to capture power.
Through a qualitative approach, this study examines community demand for resource sharing and attempts to show how this intersect with elite interest in capturing power. The study examines the inevitable conflict between community expectation and elite interest, and highlights the ensuing narratives of expectations, deceit and renegotiation touching on politics of oil, land, oil revenue and elite capture.
Key Words Political promises, elite capture, ‘kiwaak na kaad’, oil revenues
6. The Challenges in Legislation and Policy Frameworks in Protecting the Commons in an Era of Privatization
Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology, Kenya
Privatization since Hardin’s theory of the tragedy of the commons has explained the individuals’ tendency to make decisions based on their personal needs, regardless of the negative impact it may have on others. In essence this theory promotes privatization as a solution to natural resource management challenges, particularly in common-pool resource systems. For the tragedy of the commons to occur, according to this theory, the resource must be scarce and rivalries in consumption must exist. The solution to this is believed to be through the legal and policy frameworks which include the imposition of private property rights. This study will be undertaken with the main aim of understanding the challenges in legislation and policy frameworks in protecting the commons in an era of privatization. The government of Kenya has addressed the issues of privatization through the privatization Act but still there are challenges in the implementation process. These challenges will be examined in light of the government policies and legislation at the local and national level in order to establish how the deficiencies breed conflict in mining concerns such as that in Turkana, Magadi, and Lamu counties, Kenya.
Keywords: The commons, privatization, legislation and policy mechanisms.
