Protecting Eco-frontiers: Carbon Majors in Africa’s Untapped Lands

"Binder Park Zoo 05-20-2015 - African Savanah Exhibit Landscape 1" by David441491 is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

There is considerable consensus that we live in the age of the Anthropocene. Conceptually, the Anthropocene represents a time in which human activity has, for example, triggered identifiable geological, and atmospheric (among others) Earth system changes.

While this observation holds true, the Anthropocene framework appears to insufficiently acknowledge the considerable influence exerted by capitalism in shaping dynamics of power, inequalities, injustices, and even environmental destruction

An alternative conceptual framework, the Capitalocene, has been proposed by Jason Moore. This framework offers a perspective that more comprehensively encapsulates the culpable role played by corporations. These entities, driven by human agency (the Anthropos) and operating within the paradigm of capitalism, have historically and persistently fostered environmental degradation through their actions.

The Capitalocene imagery critiques how capitalism has rendered nature a good that can be exploited for a price, a process that often results in violence against nature. In Africa, Carbon Majors, who are big oil, gas, and coal producers, have left an indelibly woeful mark on the African environment.  For example, oil exploration has left in its wake a trail of heavily polluted lands and waters in the Niger Delta.

Across South Africa, Ghost towns are replete and some protected areas face mounting pressure as the government contemplates mining activities within them. In Zimbabwe, mining often operates with impunity in ecologically sensitive zones, including on land, forest, and water spaces. The relationship between carbon-majoring industries and Africa’s ecological landscape seems to be fraught with fragility and tension.

Africa’s rising energy needs

Although the carbon industry has a proven destructive environmental footprint and is closely emblematic of the Capitalocene, it remains highly lucrative. For instance, Shell's annual earnings exceeded $40 billion in 2022, a figure surpassing the gross domestic product of 17 out of Africa’s 54 countries during the same period. This financial revelation coincides with two equally significant developments: forecasts indicating that oil and gas companies are poised to invest over $800 billion in new fossil fuel projects by 2030, and concurrently, Africa’s energy demands are anticipated to rise as projected by the International Energy Agency.

Evidently, the allure of substantial profits and the abundance of untapped natural resources have ignited a fervent race to exploit Africa’s reserves, especially oil—an alarming phenomenon often referred to as the ‘new climate bomb’. However, a critical issue arises: many of these areas have historically supported livelihoods, while some represent ‘eco-frontiers’. The inevitable tensions between profit-driven motives and longstanding human-environmental interactions pose a complex dilemma.

Vast African untapped lands: eco-frontiers

Eco-frontiers were described by Sylvian Guyot as “places of pristine biodiversity and scarce but valuable natural resources (e.g., water, minerals, forest, and local knowledge)…. [which] are transitory and temporary spaces that are characterised by unique interrelationships between different non-extractive appropriations of ecological resources (conservation, preservation, hedonism, etc.), strongly marked by a sense of place, land conflicts, territorial games, and competing network forces”.

I would like to think of eco-frontiers as some of the last strongholds that some communities have. Histories, heritage, and futures often hang in the balance when Carbon Majors and governments agree to deals that are usually tagged with banters like poverty alleviation and sustainable use of natural resources. These tired tag lines have been persistently employed for years, yet poverty remains pervasive, and environmental spaces face heightened, sometimes forceful, incursions. For communities vested in safeguarding these lands - these eco-frontiers - their options appear limited, leaving them with little recourse but to engage in some form of resistance.

The emerging responses to threats to eco-frontiers

In recent times, two strategies have emerged as prominent avenues for advocating the preservation of eco-frontiers: the withholding of consent and peaceful protests. Regarding the former, it’s important to acknowledge that communities often find themselves voiceless when it comes to defending their lands. This is not to imply that they do not make efforts in this regard. For instance, the Democratic Republic of Congo’s decision in May 2023 to auction off 30 oil and gas blocks within the Congo Basin to the highest bidders has been met with concern. This is particularly worrisome due to the Congo Basin’s status as the world’s largest peatland, which also sustains the livelihoods of millions of people.

Furthermore, in 2021 the South African Wild Coast which is in fact considered a typical eco-frontier because of its biological diversity and the multitude of communities that rely on it, was the subject of much talk and judicial processes. The South African High Court in Sustaining the Wild Coast, found that the public participatory processes leading to the award of an oil exploration license to Shell were flawed. The authorities and Shell had solicited consent from parties in favor of the project, neglecting to consult those who were most opposed to it. Consequently, the administrative decision permitting the exploitation of the Wild Coast was nullified.

A few weeks subsequent to the South African case, a similar scenario unfolded in Namibia. The Namibian High Court, when presented with comparable facts and concerns, ruled that a collective of community activists from the Kavango Basin had not demonstrated the requisite urgency to prevent oil exploration activities by Reconnaissance Energy Africa, a Canadian-based company. While the communities had indeed expressed their viewpoints, such views were not factored into the final determination despite their significance for the communities.

The reality is that while capitalism has contributed to numerous advancements, its mechanisms rely on the exploitation of both human beings and, even more severely, the natural world. This exploitation of nature is particularly egregious because nature lacks a voice.

From these scenarios, it appears that dissent, often expressed as the deliberate withholding of consent, represents a peaceful and collective form of resistance against state-sanctioned environmental degradation brought about by carbon-intensive projects. This type of resistance and dissent imprints a human and environmental dimension to the struggles, amplifying and humanising the individuals and ecosystems affected by the actions of Carbon Majors.

Amidst the rhetoric of substantial job generation and poverty mitigation, the reality has consistently demonstrated that these benefits are short-term, whereas the long-term implications on both the environment and society are far-reaching. Consequently, strategically orchestrated dissent, focusing on the interconnected deprivations faced by both the environment and human communities, has the potential to shift the discourse from merely a question of ‘lack of consent’ to one of active opposition. This reorientation could effectively illuminate the broader implications of such projects and underscore the collective will to counter them.

When it comes to protests and activism, the objective is to attempt to ‘peacefully’ force change from within corporations. While the utility of this kind of activism is still emerging, I must be clear in stating my disillusionment with disruptive climate protests. Even if initial attempts at peaceful protests fail, civility should reign. Nevertheless, there is evidence that peaceful activism has an impact. A good example is the case of the proposed East African Crude Oil Pipeline, which saw various non-governmental organisations and local communities challenging the governments of Uganda and Tanzania in the East African Court of Justice.

As a consequence of this, significant backers of the project experienced a surge in shareholder activism and public protests. Institutions like South Africa’s Standard Bank Group, Japan’s Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group as well as the Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, faced with concerns raised by protesters and some of their shareholders regarding human rights and climate justice issues, either refused to provide funding for the project or distanced themselves from it.

The framing of the protests was deliberate: climate injustices are valid, and investors would be indirectly, ignorantly, or flagrantly complicit in perpetuating climate injustices if they enable the entities they invest in to disregard legitimate environmental and human rights concerns. Regrettably, this message appears to have evaded the ethical consciousness of China’s EximBank, as it has unequivocally declared its intention to fund the project. While the ethical issues surrounding this decision are interesting, they merit a separate analysis that goes beyond the scope of the current discussion.

Whither to?

The legacy of many Carbon Majors’ activities in Africa is one characterised by suffering, and environmental destruction, with healthy doses of corruption and bad governance. The reality is that while capitalism has contributed to numerous advancements, its mechanisms rely on the exploitation of both human beings and, even more severely, the natural world. This exploitation of nature is particularly egregious because nature lacks a voice. Yet for future corporate projects, dissent, public pressure, and activism in defense of nature and what it holds for communities could be key to challenging state-sanctioned environmental destruction, especially in eco-frontiers.

An inescapable reality, however, is that numerous of Africa’s eco-frontiers are untapped territories potentially harboring substantial mineral resources. Equally true is that we may never fully grasp the intricacies of these eco-frontiers as intimately as those whose lives are deeply interwoven with them, culturally, economically, and socially. One thing is clear though: we know the indelible legacies left by Carbon Majors.

Consequently, permitting Carbon Majors to continue their usual practices, particularly given the mounting evidence against the carbon industry, amounts to blind ambition and might just be a kind of ‘band-aid solution’. The consequences will likely be of gargantuan environmental proportions. Ultimately, protecting eco-frontiers is therefore foremost a governance issue, requiring deliberate choices on the part of governments. If this fails, dissent and activism might be the defining bottom-up approaches to protecting eco-frontiers.