Despite being one of the countries with the lowest carbon footprint per capita (0.21 vs 6.6 in DK),  Mozambique is one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change. Cyclones and floods have intensified in the past decades, devastating infrastructures, homes and destroying crops and agricultural land. Severe droughts and change in rain patterns have made yields less predictable and life more precarious. 80% of the population relies on small scale agriculture for livelihood, making Mozambican’s lives highly vulnerable to changes in the climate.

Climate Change Policies and REDD+

In 2007, the United Nations introduced a group of market driven climate adaptation strategies under the name of “Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries”, in short “REDD”, which was later expanded to REDD+, to include a few new elements such as conservation and enhancement of forest carbon stocks and sustainable forest management.

These initiatives aimed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) through market incentivized reforestation projects in low-income countries. Trees would be planted and grown and their ability to capture carbon monitored and then certified to be sold on the carbon market. Financed by a number of western countries such as Norway, Denmark, Spain, Japan and the EU, they have been implemented all over the world, in resource and forest rich countries such as various provinces of Mozambique, in the name of combating climate change.

In the years since its inception up to today, REDD+ programs have been widely criticized for not only failing to address the causes of deforestation and thereby intensifying the climate crisis, but also taking away land from indigenous people and local communities preventing them to continue the activities they depend on for survival.

Boaventura Monjane & Natasha Bruna

Mozambican researchers Boaventura Monjane and Natasha Bruna, (PHD in Postcolonialisms and Global Citizenship, Development Studies and Political ecology respectively) have been studying the impact of climate change and extractivism on rural livelihoods in Mozambique for many years. Their research lies at the intersection of climate justice, food sovereignty, land and resource grabbing, agrarian movements and peasants’ rights. Most recently, they have explored the impact of market based climate solutions in Mozambique, especially REDD+ or CSA (climate-smart-agriculture) programs, both part of the main national policy for climate change mitigation and adaptation.

The Nhambita Community Carbon Project

Together with local civil society organisations such as Justicia Ambiental, Uniao Nacional de Camponese and Alternactiva, Boaventura and Natasha have been researching the impact of REDD+ projects in the central Mozambique as well as alternative local adaptation initiatives. Following the “participatory research approach”, the communities in which they conducted their research “did not participate as objects of study in the classic and traditional sense of extractive research, but as active subjects.” They were directly involved in the design of the research proposal and research objectives as well as included in knowledge- building and dissemination. One of the communities they worked with is Nhambita, where a REDD+ project called “Nhambita Community Carbon project” was implemented.

Nhmabita is a small village in the province of Sofala in central Mozambique, at the border to Gorongosa National Park, where peasants live off small scale agriculture following ancestral practices. In the 2000s an English company called Envirotrade took over some of the land of the region and employed local farmers to grow trees for reforestation. In the contract, peasant farmers agreed to cede part of their lands to plant trees for Envirotrade. They were not consulted nor informed about the nature of their work. “They brought plants and we planted them” explains Chabane Francisco Sacho, secretary of the people of Nhambita.  A plant nursery was established where local women took care of giving life to seeds and care for the plants until they would be planted in the soil.

Some peasants explain they had to sacrifice their own produce to plant trees instead, yet the company promised long term substantial salaries and several additional benefits. Farmers committed to taking care of the trees minimum of 7 years in return for a wage, after that the trees should have been cared for up to 100 years. However, after a few years, the company left abruptly without saying a word, owing the farmers’ salaries and explanations. Until today, many of the farmers don’t know why the company left and why the company wanted them to plant trees.

Envirotrade was selling the equivalent of the carbon captured by the trees planted in Nhambita, on the European and US carbon market. The company earned money through the sale of these carbon credits to other companies in other parts of the world. The buyers bought themselves a “green” image and the right to continue to pollute. When the carbon prices fell, it wasn’t economically viable anymore to continue with the project, so Envirotrade disappeared.

Some farmers recount how they continued to care for the trees in the hope of Envirotrade’s return, and in fear of potential consequences, if they were to take down the trees for their own use of the land. Through the farmer’s recounts, it became clear that the local communities “no longer had decision-making power over the use and benefits from their own land”.

During their research, Natasha and Boaventura organised workshops, where they explained to the participating farmers the concept of climate change, what the trees were used for and how carbon markets work. Farmers could share their own experiences of changes in the climate and soil, the difficulties they encountered and were asked to provide their wishes and ideas about tackling the changes in climate and create resilience in their communities.

From mining, energy and agricultural extractivism to green extractivism

The exploitation of Mozambican resources for the international market has a long history. Mozambique’s economy has long been based on extraction of natural resources, from coal, oil, gas, to timber and agricultural produce. Continuing a legacy of neoliberal colonialism, the government relied its development model mainly on extractive activities for export, welcoming foreign direct investment in mining and monocultures of for example eucalyptus, rubber trees, timber. Natasha explains how Mozambique quickly became an “extractive hub nurturing other countries’ industrialisation with energy and primary commodities”. While this might have increased the GDP, it did not reduce poverty, nor did it benefit the population at large; on the contrary, it resulted in unaccounted social and environmental negative externalities.[iv] More than 60% of the population is still lacking access to safe water, health facilities or education.
Mining, timber logging, firewood and charcoal production and industrial agriculture are all extractive activities that have laid and continue to lay at the root of forest degradation in Mozambique.

Access to land is a great source of inequality in the country. In the north, gas mining from European and North American companies and timber logging for Chinese export have been associated with displacements and murders; in the center, coal mining from Indian companies, sand mines from Russian companies.

The rush to carbon credits has exacerbated the land rush in Mozambique, especially high biodiversity areas to capture carbon and sell it on international markets. This results in the rural population’s lost ability to rightfully benefit from the ecological assets of their land. Natasha explains how the current climate policies are a continuation of the extractive development model giving rise to green extractivism,  “a variation of extractivism that is based on the extraction, expropriation and transfer of emissions rights from rural poor, in favour of foreign accumulation”.

Mount Mabu Community

Boaventura and Natasha also investigated a different approach to climate adaptation in the Mabu community, in the district of Lugela, Zambezia Province.

The Mabu community resides at the feet of Mount Mabu, and similar to Nhambita has a great biodiversity potential, attractive for international corporations. In an interview with Boaventura and Natasha, Jose Ogaste Mardoela, president of the Limbue peasant association, recounts that the area available to them has been reduced throughout the years with the advent of international corporations such as Portucel Mozambique (owned by Portuguese “The Navigator Company) planting vast areas of Eucalyptus monocultures for paper production; or Indian owned Mozambique Holding’s monocultures of rubber trees, “causing terrible social and environmental impacts”.
In collaboration with the local environmental organisation Justicia Ambiental since 2009, the community comes together to identify challenges and opportunities and how to defend their local needs and interests. They discuss and develop best practices to ensure sustainable use of the forests.

The people here helped and inspired each other to care for and conserve their biodiversity and ancestral practices. They practice conservation agriculture, small livestock raising and sustainable forest product foraging, all activities that contribute to the mitigation and adaptation to climate change at the same time ensuring livelihood to the families.
As part of the participatory research, three people from the community of Nhambita were invited to join the trip to Mabu community to share experience and knowledge between the communities. With the help of Justicia Ambiental, the inhabitants of Mabu were able to create associations able to inform and stand judicial conflicts with national and international corporations.
“Before the association we had no control, people from far away would arrive and take what they wanted. But now we have an association, people can’t just come in” says Filomena Vilinho Socré, vice president of the association of women of Limbue.

Justicia Ambiental and the community continue to collaborate to ensure that the communities have the right to determine how to best use the local natural resources. For Boaventura and Natasha this is an example to follow if we want to achieve climate justice.

PLAs

With the help of external funding, in the past 20 years the government has been designing plans of adaptation so-called “PLA – planos locais de adaptacao” for several districts in the country. As of today, many have already expired or are about to expire, but were never implemented. While a few communities (approx. less than 0.5%) were involved in the research process, it was by far representative, and many plans ended up being investment plans very similar to each other and were forgotten in the closet.

Conclusion

Current climate change adaptation solutions in Mozambique are mostly top-down strategies extractive in nature, often funded by and benefitting the global north, perpetuating inequality and expropriation.
Local communities have no or very limited say into solutions that should benefit them and mitigate climate change. In this regard, Redd+ projects have been widely criticized for their inefficiency and for doing more harm than good, by reducing climate adaptation to a mere trading and market mechanism, rather than taking the needs and rights of the communities and areas involved into account.

Boaventura and Natasha’s researches argue how full participation of the local and indigenous communities needs to be ensured for a just climate mitigation. Their needs should be met and prioritized, and community members should have decision power concerning projects in their areas.

They advocate for equal and inclusive participation of the target group in the design and implementation of climate change adaptation solutions and for setting a stop to the extractive nature of development in the name of climate change.  

Alberica Rindi is a MSc. in Global Development, University of Copenhagen