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ABSTRACT
Geothermal development in Kenya’s Rift Valley will reap enormous energy benefits for the nation as a whole. But its impacts upon local communities, in this case in the Ol Karia area of Nakuru County, are often negative, and geothermal expansion has led to many divisions and conflicts over equitable resource use, environmental degradation, health impacts on humans and animals, forced resettlement, access to benefits including jobs, houses and profit sharing, human and land rights, and community representation vis-á-vis the geothermal companies. Many questions have been raised about the role of the state and international financial institutions (IFIs). Accusations abound at grassroots level of nepotism, corruption and discrimination, and some indigenous residents accuse the majority Maasai of doubly marginalising them in the scramble for rights and benefits. Against a background of historical continuities, land injustices, and global struggles for indigenous and marginalised peoples’ rights, this article examines the conflicts and complexities surrounding geothermal development at Ol Karia and its environs, and describes how people on the ground see the prospects for future peaceful co-existence with extractive industry on their lands.
Acknowledgements
Lotte Hughes would like to thank Francis Ole Kool, Ken Siloma, David Kipayion and Simon Sencho for field assistance and translation. She thanks Bernhard Gißibl of the University of Mainz for translating Gustav Fischer, and Richard Waller and John Sutton for information on the early history. Both authors warmly thank two anonymous reviewers, Michael Tiampati and other team colleagues, local residents and other informants, for sharing information.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1 For example, IRENA, Africa’s Renewable Future.
2 REN21, Renewables 2019, 80, 81.
3 For official updates on geothermal production see http://vision2030.go.ke/2013-2017/#58; http://vision2030.go.ke/about-vision-2030/ (accessed 11 December 2019).
4 Mwangi, “Geothermal Exploration”.
5 REN21, Renewables 2019. Also see BloombergNEF, Climatescope. Emerging Markets Outlook 2019 (25 November 2019), http://global-climatescope.org/assets/data/reports/climatescope-2019-report-en.pdf
6 For Kenya and LAPSSET, see for example African Commission, Extractive Industries; Browne, LAPSSET; Charis, “Infrastructure Projects”; Mosley and Watson, “Frontier Transformations”; Kochore, “The Road to Kenya?”. LAPSSET is the Lamu Port-South Sudan-Ethiopia Transport Corridor project.
7 See for example Gilbert and Sena, “Litigating”; Baird, Critical Theory (on Australian Aboriginal peoples’ relationship with ‘Country’); Bargh and Wagner, “Participation as Exclusion”; Engle, Elusive Promise.
8 OHCHR, Free, Prior. For a discussion of FPIC, see for example African Commission, “Extractive Industries”; Ammer et al., Human Rights Performance; Doyle, Indigenous Peoples; Doyle and Whitmore, Indigenous Peoples; Tomlinson, “Indigenous Rights”.
9 For the adverse impacts of extractive industry on indigenous Africans, see African Commission, “Extractive Industries”, which has a case study on Kenya. For a broader overview see Burger, “Indigenous Peoples”.
10 Email to L Hughes 10 November 2019. Hughes mailed the EIB many questions, including about its policy on indigenous peoples. It said it does not have a ‘separate’ policy, though its Standard 7 includes a definition, EIB, Environmental and Social Standards, 2018 https://www.eib.org/en/publications/environmental-and-social-standards-overview (accessed 11 December 2019). Among its criteria for indigeneity are three we had not seen before, which had led the EIB to decide the Ol Karia Maasai are not all ‘land-based’, ‘self-sufficient’, or ‘homogeneous’, and therefore not indigenous. ‘Homogeneous’ is not listed here but an EIB staffer cited it in Africa Uncensored and David Tarazona, “The Forgotten Struggle of Kenyan Indigenous People”, 23 June 2017 https://www.eibinafrica.eu/the-forgotten-struggle-of-kenyan-indigenous-people/. When repeatedly asked for the source of these criteria, the EIB could not supply a satisfactory answer. Emails between L Hughes and the EIB’s Civil Society Division, April-November 2019. Also see EIB-CM, “Conclusions Report. Olkaria I and IV Kenya. Complaint SG/E/2014/07. Complaint SG/3/2014/08” (2015) https://www.eib.org/attachments/complaints/sg-e-2014-07and-08-conclusions-report-en.pdf, 34–35; https://www.eib.org/en/about/accountability/complaints/cases/sg-e-2014-07-olkaria-a (2014). Schade, “EU Accountability”, also critiques EIB policy on indigenous peoples, and other aspects of its performance in relation to development projects.
11 AfD failed to answer numerous questions, and said it was not able to disclose post-project assessments in this case. Email to L Hughes 20 December 2019, and previously.
12 Ol Karia is often spelled as one word, as in the proper names of geothermal plants. But in Maa a hyphen separates the prefix from the noun that follows: ol-, plural il-. Ol-karia, pl. il-karian means ochre. We spell it Ol Karia, using Olkaria only when citing sources that follow this style, or when referring to the names of plants. Mol, “Dictionary”, was consulted for all Maa words.
13 Alexander Richter, “KenGen announces 86.6 MW of Olkaria V Unit 1 to be online”, The Geothermal Newsletter, ThinkGeoEnergy, 29 July 2019 http://www.thinkgeoenergy.com/kengen-announces-86-6-mw-of-olkaria-v-unit-1-geothermal-plant-to-be-online/. For the latest KenGen news, see https://www.kengen.co.ke/
14 Akiira One is planned for the former Akiira Ranch, part of Kedong Ranch, near the resettlement village of RAPland. Management company Akiira Geothermal Ltd (AGL) has thus far only drilled two unsuccessful wells. KenGen is also drilling new wells close to RAPland. These developments have sparked local residents’ fears of more evictions. AGL is owned by the Kenyan investment company Centum Investment, in partnership with three non-Kenyan companies. The EIB also has an indirect financial interest in it, as does DFID, the UK Government’s Department for International Development. http://www.akiiraone.com/
15 Sena, “Renewable Energy”; Koissaba, “Green Energy”; for Baringo, see Greiner, “Negotiating Access”.
16 A 1984 allocation of land in the park to ‘KenGen or Power 4’ [sic, OrPower 4] is described as an illegal allocation in the Report of the Commission of Inquiry, commonly known as the Ndung’u Report after its chairman.
17 https://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/5511/ (accessed 13 August 2019). Maasai elders were consulted and agreed to move people out of the park, but so far as we know there was no written agreement. According to oral sources, force was applied and homesteads burned down.
18 It is beyond the scope of this article to fully describe the environmental impacts, some of which are foretold in the Environmental and Social Impact Assessments (ESIAs) for each plant. One example, for Olkaria IV (2010), is at https://www.eib.org/attachments/pipeline/20090674_nts1_en.pdf Expert commentators have criticised their failure to adequately consider the socio-cultural-environmental impacts on PAPs. Furthermore, the consultancy firms that produced the ESIAs appear to lack expert knowledge, e.g. of anthropology and culture.
19 For Kenya and Maasai, see Hughes, “Mining”. It describes the genesis of the oldest commercial mining operation in Kenya – soda extraction at Lake Magadi, which began in the 1900s.
20 http://kenyalaw.org/kl/fileadmin/pdfdownloads/bills/2014/NaturalResources_Benefit_Sharing_Bill__2014.pdf (accessed 13 August 2019).
21 For other contemporary Kenyan examples, see Cormack and Kurewa, “Changing Value”; Cormack, “Promotion”; and Mosley and Watson, “Frontier Transformations”.
22 Il-Keekonyokie are a Maasai socio-territorial section, called ol-osho, pl. il-oshon.
23 Schade, “EU Accountability”, 76, gives a population figure of about 20,000, but our study area was larger than Ol Karia.
24 Personal communication, Richard Waller. Prior to this, it is difficult to be sure which section lived here, since sectional identities were weakly if at all developed before 1900. Email to L Hughes 23 August 2019.
26 Participatory Video (PV) is a facilitated group process, which involves marginalised communities in using creative media to explore their situation and communicate externally. Our thanks to Jackie Shaw for this definition.
27 All informants were offered anonymity, but some chose to be named in outputs. Only the latter will therefore be named in notes.
28 Sawyer and Gomez, “Transnational Governmentality”.
29 https://www.un.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/declaration-on-the-rights-of-indigenous-peoples.html (accessed 2 December 2019). Also see Doyle and Whitmore, Indigenous Peoples.
30 For Ol Karia, see e.g. Koissaba, “Geothermal Energy”; Obergassel et al., “Human Rights”; Schade, Kenya 'Olkaria IV'; Schade, “EU Accountability”; Schade and Obergassel, “Human Rights”; Sena, Renewable Energy; WB-IP, “Panel Cases. Kenya. Electricity Expansion Project. Case 97” (2014) http://www.inspectionpanel.org/panel-cases/electricity-expansion-project; WB-IP, Indigenous Peoples. Emerging Lessons Series No. 2 (2016) https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/25328
31 Sawyer and Gomez, “Transnational Governmentality”, iii.
32 Ibid.
33 It is not possible to identify the elite owners, since they hide behind proxies.
34 Downing, Avoiding New Poverty.
35 See Obergassel et al., “Human Rights”, on ‘interlocking disadvantages’. Schade et al., “Climate Change”, is cited as the original source of this term.
36 Lamprey and Waller, “Loita-Mara”, citing Ehret (1984). A short history of Ol Karia Maasai is in Annex B, WB-IP, “Kenya Electricity Expansion Project (P103037). Report No. 100392-KE. Investigation Report” (July 2015), 53–55 http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/302011468001152301/pdf/100392-INVR-P103037-INSP-R2015-0005-1-Box393222B-PUBLIC-disclosed-10-21-15.pdf
37 Sutton, “Becoming Maasailand”, and emails to L Hughes, 10 December 2018, 21 March 2019.
38 By ‘pan-sectional alliance’ Waller means the Il Kinopop (Purko, Keekonyukie, Damat and possibly the Il Dalalekutuk). Email to L Hughes 23 August 2018.
39 Mol, Dictionary, gives ol-core o-irowua, meaning hot spring, 122.
40 Fischer, “‘Bericht”, 45, 53, 83.
41 Thomson, Through Masai Land, 197.
42 Waller, “Maasai and the British”, 530ff.
43 Hughes, Moving the Maasai. Strictly speaking this was the pre-colonial era, since Kenya Colony was not established until 1920; it was previously the protectorate of British East Africa.
44 Exact numbers are not known, but oral sources suggest that 150–200 people were moved.
45 Letter from Maasai to the WB Inspection Panel (WB-IP), 26 October 2014, “Expansion Project,” no page number. Signatories blacked out.
46 External co-funders of Olkaria IV were the EIB, WB, AfD, Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW) and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).
47 See e.g. Ammer et al., Human Rights; Koissaba, “Geothermal Energy”; Schade and Obergassel, “Human Rights”; Schade, Kenya ‘Olkaria IV’ and “EU Accountability”; Obergassel et al., “Human Rights”, 66ff.
48 WB-IP, “Investigation Report”, vi, 11.
49 D Rogei interview with Sakayian Ole Nkamasiai, pastoralist, 75 (RAPland, 15 November 2018).
50 Compensation was land for land; houses were built in lieu of cash. PAPs were also given 35,000 Kenya shillings per household for relocation costs, much of which (they say) was taken back as electricity connection fees. Many PAPs cannot afford to use the electricity.
51 ‘Jobs’ does not refer only to wage labour. Many PAPs complain about the distance they now have to travel to reach sites of work, notably at the Gorge (about 15 km away) where men work as self-employed tour guides and women sell beadwork. Paucity and cost of transport is also a major issue.
52 Only 1.4 per cent of the KenGen workforce was Maasai in 2016 (Schade, Kenya ‘Olkaria IV’, 8). KenGen’s CLO told Rogei in interview (see note 75 below) there are currently 80 Maasai out of 2000 employees, including casuals.
53 The MoU came about after a section of the community complained to the WB, alleging KenGen was not fulfilling its pledges. It contains 27 actionable items and spells out obligations for both PAPs and KenGen.
54 It is impossible to confirm the identity of the perpetrators, variously described by informants and activists as Kikuyu, soldiers/police (the Kiswahili word askari means both), ‘hired goons’, and members of the criminal gang Mungiki, working with police.
55 Women’s FGD (Cultural Centre, 18 June 2018). The quote is from a 42-year-old PAP from RAPland, a beadwork maker and RAPIC member.
56 F Ole Kool interview with charcoal burner, mother of six (RAPland, 18 June 2018).
57 L Hughes interview with Kiseli Loiramiram Lelenguyia, 56, casual labourer and former pastoralist, who has lost all his stock since moving (RAPland, 29 January 2019).
58 The 999 years started on 1 May 1950. This society is described as ‘the formal entity for the Project affected people’ [sic] in WB, “Addendum to Management Report and Recommendation in response to the Inspection Panel Investigation Report. Kenya Electricity Expansion Project” (2016), 7. http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/407691481338889626/pdf/1481338888515-000A10458-Kenya-Addendum-11282016.pdf The 28 May 2016 mediation agreement is in Annex I.
59 L Hughes interview with Samburu tour guide/trainee mechanic, 21 (RAPland, 1 January 2019).
60 Single male pastoralist, 21, participant in Youth FGD (Narasha, 6 February 2019).
61 L Hughes interview with married tour guide, 21 (Olomayiana Kubwa, 11 June 2018).
62 Single unemployed man, 25. Youth FGD (Olomayiana Kubwa, 15 June 2018).
63 D Rogei interview with tour guide, 25 (RAPland, 13 April 2018).
64 L Hughes interview (Ol Njorowa Gorge, 28 January 2019).
65 L Hughes interview with housewife and mother of five (Olomayiana Kubwa, 11 June 2018).
66 All formal complaints and responses are here: https://inspectionpanel.org/panel-cases/electricity-expansion-project (2014).
67 EIB-CM, “Conclusions Report”, Executive Summary, 5.
68 WB-IP, “Indigenous Peoples. Emerging Lessons Series No. 2” (2016), 6. http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/447361478156710826/pdf/109710-REVISED-PUBLIC-IP-lessons-text-10-31-16web-links.pdf
69 ‘Management’ refers to the World Bank.
70 WB-IP, “Investigation Report”, vi.
71 AfD email to L Hughes 15 November 2019.
72 The WB-IP describes the second of these (2012) as a ‘census update’ and the third (2013) a ‘census validation exercise’. It found all three ‘were methodologically flawed and culturally incompatible, resulting in inconsistencies and contradictions,’ “Investigation Report”, 19.
73 “Agreement on Olkaria IV Resettlement Mediation”, see note 58 above.
74 The most recent report is the “Second Progress Report on the Implementation of Management’s Action Plan” (30 April 2019) https://inspectionpanel.org/sites/inspectionpanel.org/files/cases/documents/97-Second%20Management%20Progress%20Report-30%20April%202019.pdf
75 D Rogei interview with Haroun Kiraison, KenGen CLO (Suswa, 20 January 2019).
76 WB-IP, “Investigation Report”, 17.
77 WB-IP, “Indigenous Peoples”, 32.
78 L Hughes interview with Daniel Kisotu Ndiriano, 42 (Rangers’ Post, 28 January 2010).
79 Also see Koissaba, “Geothermal Energy”, 6.
80 L Hughes interview with Florence Tankaro, 39 (Olomayiana Kubwa, 12 June 2018).
81 D Rogei interview with farmer, 50 (RAPland, 7 May 2019).
82 Hughes has evidence of this in a statement forwarded by AGL, from a Maasai man claiming to represent ‘the community’, supporting AGL’s actions against Lorropil. PAPs say that this person does not represent them, and is not trusted.
83 Ol-kunoni, pl. il-kunono. Blacksmith class, traditionally considered inferior by other Maasai.
84 Information supplied to Rogei by pastoralist, 75, Narasha. This was not a formal interview.
85 For example, we heard complaints from members of the Purko section that they felt discriminated against by Keekonyokie.
86 Activist Mark Tinkoi, speaking to D Rogei (Suswa, 15 April 2019).
87 L Hughes interview with Fatuma Hitler (RAPland, 29 January 2019). Miraa, also known as quat or qat, is a plant-based drug grown in Kenya and the Horn of Africa, where it is legal.
88 Turkana charcoal burner, 43, participating in FGD (Lorropil, 1 February 2019).
89 Quoted in AGL’s response to this International Accountability Project report: https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/kenya-report-claims-communities-impacted-by-akiira-geothermals-operations-not-adequately-consulted-includes-company-response-ngos-rejoinder (accessed 11 December 2019). AGL made similar remarks in emails to L Hughes, November 2019.
90 Lotte Hughes and Daniel Lepariyo, “David v Goliath: A Small Village’s Struggle with an Industrial Giant”, The Star, 2 November 2019. https://www.the-star.co.ke/siasa/2019-11-02-david-v-goliath-a-small-villages-struggle-with-an-industrial-giant/ (accessed 10 December 2019)
91 Email to L Hughes 9 July 2019. EIB Standards (2018) do in fact include protection for squatters.
92 The EIB told Hughes it ‘had taken seriously’ alerts from Hughes and lobbyists, but gave other reasons for cancelling the loan. Email to L Hughes 30 October 2019.
93 The authors have visual evidence of this. AGL denied knowing about or ordering the teargassing and said it would investigate. Email to L Hughes 5 November 2019.
94 Emails to L Hughes and Bankwatch, November 2019.
95 Regarding AGL, evidence includes the way in which the Nakuru Deputy County Commissioner (DCC) assisted AGL in evicting the Lorropil villagers. Hughes has documents to prove it, supplied by AGL, which later claimed police and county government had carried out the eviction, not AGL. Evidence of county government bias towards KenGen includes the reportedly partisan behaviour of the DCC on the SCC. The arsonists who burned Narasha houses in 2013 were accompanied by police who could only have been acting on DCC orders.
96 See note 56 above.
97 L Hughes interview with Lesiamon Kisotu (Olomayiana Kubwa, 16 June 2018).
98 L Hughes interview with married tour guide (Olomayiana Kubwa, 11 June 2018).
99 Hughes, Moving the Maasai.
100 Many Maasai are now literate, but educational levels remain low, especially among elders and women.
101 Hughes. “Mining”.
102 Michael Tiampati interview with white-collar KenGen employee, 36 (Suswa, 18 March 2019).
103 Michael Tiampati interview with Il-Chamus NLC member (Nairobi, 5 April 2019).
104 Galaty, “Land and Livestock”, 82.
105 Burger, “Indigenous Peoples”, suggests it should be called ‘continuing consent’, 17.
106 Ammer et al., Human Rights, 36. This includes a case study on RAPland.
107 L Hughes interview with male PAP, 72 (RAPland, 14 June 2018).
108 Schade, “EU Accountability”, notes that ‘the more stakeholders are involved in the funding of a project, the more complex the designation of responsibility becomes,’ 73.
109 Drafted in 2016, these did not become operational until October 2018 https://www.worldbank.org/en/projects-operations/environmental-and-social-framework (accessed 22 December 2019). See in particular standard seven on indigenous peoples.
110 No byline, “European Commission criticises the EIB’s role as a development bank”, Counter Balance Newsletter, 11 October 2019. http://www.counter-balance.org/european-commission-criticises-the-eibs-role-as-a-development-bank/. This reports on an EC evaluation of EIB development operations under its External Lending Mandate from 2014-2018.