By Chris Lang Three weeks ago, about 150 Sengwer Indigenous People travelled to Nairobi to deliver a petition to President Uhuru Kenyatta. The petition was signed by 270,000 people and requests recognition of the Sengwer’s land rights in the Embobut forest. The President refused to meet with the Sengwer.
Total greenwash: Total CEO announces oil company will spend US$100 million a year on forest protection and reforestation
By Chris Lang On 6 July 2019, Patrick Pouyanné, the CEO of French oil and gas company Total, announced that his company would invest US$100 million per year in forest protection. Total’s announcement comes shortly after similar announcements by Shell and Eni to offset some of their emissions with forest conservation projects.
“The claim that global tree restoration is our most effective climate change solution is simply incorrect scientifically and dangerously misleading”
By Chris Lang In July 2019, Science magazine published a paper titled, “The global tree restoration potential”. The paper was written predominantly by scientists from the Crowther Lab at ETH–Zürich, and from the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation. The paper resulted in a very large amount of media coverage, and some criticism from climate scientists.
A new threat to the Maasai in Ngorongoro District of Tanzania
By Chris Lang Over the past decade, Indigenous Maasai communities living in Ngorongoro District in Tanzania have faced a series of violent evictions. The government recently announced that more evictions are planned, under a proposal to divide the Ngorongoro Conservation Area into four zones.
REDD in Guyana: Elite agendas, political temporalities, and the politics of environmental policy failure
By Chris Lang In 2009, Norway launched Guyana’s Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation programme. Back then, it was an amibitious US$250 million scheme. Ten years later Guyana’s REDD programme has been almost completely abandoned.