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From: Biniam Tekle (biniamt@dehai.org)
Date: Mon Sep 12 2011 - 21:39:39 EDT
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-bosshard/how-a-big-dam-fuels-landg_b_957852.html
How
a Big Dam Fuels Landgrabs, Hunger and Conflict in Ethiopia
Posted: 9/12/11 06:58 PM ET
As food prices rise, the lands of rural communities are being snatched up
for plantations at an alarming rate around the world. According to the World
Bank, large agricultural land deals made up an area bigger than California
in 2009 alone. A new
report<http://media.oaklandinstitute.org/land-deal-brief-ethiopia-lower-omo>documents
how the controversial Gibe III Dam is fueling landgrabs in Southwestern
Ethiopia right now. These grabs will compound the dam's impacts on poor
communities and their unique ecosystems.
The Omo River is the lifeline of the Lower Omo Valley and the only major
source of water of Lake Turkana, the world's largest desert lake. About
500,000 indigenous people are eking out a living from the fragile ecosystems
of the river and lake.
The Gibe III Dam<http://www.internationalrivers.org/en/africa/gibe-3-dam-ethiopia>,
which is currently under construction, will disrupt the river's annual flood
cycle and lower the water levels of Lake Turkana. Critics have long feared
that once the dam is built, the Ethiopian government will establish
plantations in the Omo Valley and use the regulated water flow to irrigate
export crops. The government dismissed such fears as baseless, and argued
that the dam would not reduce the amount of water in the Omo River and Lake
Turkana.
Now that the dam is being built, the government is showing its true colors.
An official map<http://www.internationalrivers.org/files/images/Omo%20valley%20sugar%20cane%20map.JPG>
of the Lower Omo Valley delineates three blocks of land with a total of
245,000 hectares (close to 1,000 square miles) that will be turned into
sugar plantations, to be managed by a state-owned sugar company. A briefing
paper <http://media.oaklandinstitute.org/land-deal-brief-ethiopia-lower-omo>
by the Oakland Institute, a research and advocacy organization, suggests
that in addition, 11 smaller concessions have been awarded for private
cotton plantations.
Growing thirsty crops such as sugar cane and cotton for the world market
does not make sense in a region that is scarce in water and prone to hunger
and resource conflicts. The dam and the associated land grabs will turn the
Gibe III hydropower project into a social and environmental disaster on
several accounts:
- A scientific
study<http://www.friendsoflaketurkana.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=178&catid=24&Itemid=36>
commissioned by the African Development Bank found that the Gibe III Dam
will have serious impacts on Lake Turkana even without the plantations.
Withdrawing large amounts of water for irrigation agriculture may push its
ecosystem over the edge. The study estimates that irrigation projects could
cut the amount of water in Lake Turkana by half and lead to a dramatic drop
in its surface level by 20 meters.
- The Lower Omo Valley is no no-man's land. It has been inhabited since
time immemorial by eight indigenous peoples, including the Dassanech, Mursi
and Nyangatom. If other landgrabs in Ethiopia are a model, the local
populations will be kicked out from their lands without consent or
compensation, and forced into resettlement camps. The government argues that
the plantations will create jobs, but such jobs typically go to outsiders
and not to indigenous people who have never been part of the formal economy.
- The sugar plantations will occupy and affect unique ecosystems that
have been protected as national parks and World Heritage Sites in Ethiopia
and Kenya. In June 2011, the UN's World Heritage Committee urged the
Ethiopian government <http://www.internationalrivers.org/en/node/6772> to
"immediately halt all construction" on the Gibe III Dam and to invite a
monitoring mission to review the project's impacts on Lake Turkana. With the
new plans for large-scale plantations, the government demonstrates its
contempt for its international obligations.
- Even where water is not scarce, large-scale irrigation projects have a
bad track record in Africa, and have proven to be less effective at reducing
poverty than support for the rainfed agriculture of poor farmers. A World
Bank report <http://www.donorplatform.org/resources/63/file/2005_WB_Reengaging-in-Agricultural-Water-Management.pdf>in
2005 summarized the widespread economic, social, environmental and public
health problems of large-scale irrigation projects and concluded that
"investing in agricultural water management for rainfed farmers must be a
priority."
As the Oakland Institute
documents<http://media.oaklandinstitute.org/land-deal-brief-ethiopia-lower-omo>,
the land and water grabs in the Lower Omo Valley appear imminent. Access
roads have already been built, and the people who live in the target area
are constantly being harassed and intimidated by the Ethiopian army. As the
Institute's researcher told us after a recent visit to the area, security
forces regularly visit the local villages and beat up or detain people who
don't support the sugar plantations. Many villagers, the researcher told us,
now run for cover whenever outsiders appear near their settlements for fear
of repression.
The sugar plantations in the Omo Valley are not an isolated case. In a separate
report<http://media.oaklandinstitute.org/understanding-land-investment-deals-africa-ethiopia>,
the Oakland Institute estimated that the Ethiopian government has turned
over 14,000 square miles of agricultural lands to investors since 2008 --
usually without any benefits for the local people. The World Bank
documented<http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/NEWS/0,,contentMDK:22694767~pagePK:64257043~piPK:437376~theSitePK:4607,00.html>
large-scale agricultural land deals to the amount of 175,000 square miles
for 2009 alone.
Ethiopia is the world's second largest recipient of development aid. The
United States, the World Bank, the European Union and the United Kingdom are
among its major donors <http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/21/7/1880804.gif>.
Their assistance supports a wide variety of activities, from food aid to the
government budget from which the Gibe III Dam is being funded. These donors
should no longer turn a blind eye to a project that will cause environmental
collapse, hunger and conflict, and violates Ethiopia's international
obligations.
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