Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

EU-funded nature conservation projects in Kenya seen as a form of development aid serve many
functions of geopolitical and economic importance to the funding bodies such as supporting the
negotiation of free trade agreements, or gaining access to new territories for investments necessary
for the facilitation of the European Green Deal, i.e. the transition to a carbon-neutral economy while
maintaining European economic growth. This thesis was based on the analysis of the agendas of the
EU’s Green Deal, the UN’s Clean Development Mechanism, EU-Kenya Free Trade Agreement
2023, Kenya Vision 2030, David Harvey’s theory of ‘accumulation by dispossession’, critical
cartography and extensive fieldwork in Kenya. The study focused on two case studies of nature
conservation projects with EU funding and their effects on the local communities: 1) the Northern
Rangelands Trust (NRT) and the Papariko mangrove restoration project by Vlinder Climate/
Hummingbirds climate funds. My research found that the EU and its member states, through
funding the NRT, played a big role in the regional transformations by assisting the process of
sedentarisation of the pastoralists in northern Kenya, therefore vacating previously common land
for investments. This process fueled conflicts between pastoralist tribes, for example, Turkana and
Samburu in Loruko, which propelled the EU-funded militarisation of the region. This in turn
supported the future security of the LAPSSET corridor, which is important for the global circulation
of critical raw materials necessary for green transitions and for generating revenue from the clean
energy technology production largely based in the EU. Contrary to the objectives of the European
Green Deal, the EU and its member states also helped the regional expansion of the fossil fuel
corporations ENI and Total Energies through their diplomatic efforts. Furthermore, there was a
strong correlation between the EU-funded nature conservation projects by the NRT and Vlinder
Climate/Hummingbirds and the extractive industry through the strategic placing of the projects over
critical minerals, petroleum reserves and the infrastructure corridors but also through the direct
links of the projects to the extractive companies like Total Energies, Tullow Oil or Base Titanium
through the personal connections, funding and CSR programmes. The nature conservation projects
could grant the involved companies preferential access to local resources through involvement in
county-level and national politics. Finally, in both case studies in northern and coastal Kenya nature
conservation efforts were denying the local communities subsistence livelihoods, therefore forcibly
including them in the global economy and the fiscal system of the country, which contributed to the
goal of Kenya Vision 2030 of becoming a middle-income nation through generating revenue from
taxes and the growing number of consumers.