Press Release

Africa's green minerals and potential for solar cells and wind turbines are called the continent's great opportunity. Ikal Ang'elei believes that it can have major consequences for the living conditions of local communities.

Ikal Ang'elei has a fear. It began when she saw oil projects spring up in northern Kenya, driving indigenous people away from places where they have lived for generations. And since then, the fear has grown greater.

Because while the narrative in the global north and among a number of African actors and leaders is that the green transition will be Africa's great export adventure, and that the countries have the potential to develop in a sustainable way that bypasses fossil fuels, Ikal sees Ang'elei the back of the development. She sees the dilemmas and problems behind the climate goals to be achieved by 2050, and it scares her.

In the northern Turkana district of Kenya, where she grew up, she experiences how green energy projects have consequences for local communities, because they are moved from their homes without being heard and with very little compensation. Activists like her are trying to speak out, litigate and give a voice to indigenous peoples, but she feels it's harder because the green agenda has a much more positive narrative around it.

"I am concerned that the green energy transition will be worse and have greater consequences for indigenous people and local communities than oil and coal mining has had. Both because the projects fit into every global agreement and agenda that exists, but also because it has to go fast,' she tells Information when we meet her in Copenhagen. 

Here, among other things, she will take part in a debate on how green energy projects can be better respected for the rights of indigenous peoples.

According to Ikal Ang'elei, the green transition risks becoming a slippery slope, where more people will lose access to water, livelihoods and their original homes in the service of the good cause.

It is a paradoxical situation, she believes. They are trying to reach the Paris Agreement's objective of a maximum temperature rise of 1.5 degrees and ensure that more people in the world have access to sustainable energy, but at the same time they risk destroying nature and the living conditions of indigenous people.

"The consequences are not taken seriously enough, because on paper it is a positive action, and it gives the projects legitimacy," she says.

The dilemma

Ikal Ang'elei's fight for the rights of indigenous peoples began when she was studying at the University of Nairobi and heard about a hydroelectric plant to be built in Ethiopia. The large-scale project Gilgel Gibe III Dam on the Omo River in southern Ethiopia, which was supposed to supply electricity to the country.

At first she thought it couldn't be right. Because if it were built, it would not only have consequences for the indigenous people who live along the Omo River in Ethiopia. It would also affect the local communities around the great Lake Turkana in Kenya, the largest desert lake in the world, whose northern area borders Omo in Ethiopia.

The Omo River is the largest and most important tributary of Lake Turkana, and if a dam were to be erected, it would risk affecting the environment of the lake and making life difficult for the many people who make a living from fishing, cattle breeding and agriculture in the area.

Ikal Ang'elei knew from his father's tales that building dams was not without its problems. He himself had fought against a dam in Turkana in the 1980s, but it caused him so much trouble with the state that he eventually had to stop.

"I knew there was something wrong with it, and I couldn't help but get involved," she says.

It culminated in the founding of the organization Friends of Lake Turkana in 2007, which initially fought to stop the construction of Ethiopia's Gilgel Gibe III dam, but which today works on several other projects that have consequences for indigenous peoples. Among other things, Ikal Ang'elei has been involved in the challenges of the large-scale Lake Turkana Wind Power Project in Turkana, for which Vestas has supplied wind turbines and which Denmark has supported through the Investment Fund for Developing Countries (IFU).

The Lake Turkana Wind Power project (LTWP) includes 365 wind turbines supplied by Danish Vestas and is one of the projects that Kenyan Ikal Ang'elei is fighting against.

According to her, that project has illustrated the dilemmas with green energy. On the one hand, there are good intentions with the project and it has led to improved infrastructure and electricity for Nairobi. But on the other hand, it has violated the rights of indigenous people because they have not been consulted before their land was suddenly given away to the energy project. Activists and NGOs succeeded in winning a court case a few years ago, where a court ruled that the project was built in violation of the law, and the local tribal communities have since received compensation.

According to Ikal Ang'elei, it was positive that they got a victory, but she does not feel sure that in future energy projects the local communities will be included from the beginning. And if you end up obtaining greater financial compensation, it does not change the fact that you still have problems with where people are to be moved to. Especially because climate change is making living conditions difficult in parts of Kenya, and thus the struggle for resources such as water and food is intensifying.

"We have to recognize that the climate crisis is not only about pollution. The climate crisis is also food security and water shortages. The fact that people cannot produce food or access water creates a new crisis of displacement and migration of people,' she says.

A culture disappears

One of the things that can make Ikal Ang'elei most depressed is all that one has lost or is at risk of losing when the original people are moved away and their living conditions are changed. It is a "gold mine of history, culture, language, ways of life and relationship with nature that you throw away", as she puts it.

According to her, it can basically be fine for a family to get a new house to live in and a small piece of land, but the cultural background is often not taken into account. For example, whether they can grow the crops they have lived on for many years.

"You think you can just go to an area and tell people to move from a place where they have lived for generations," she says, pausing in the flow of speech.

"It would never happen in a country like, for example, Denmark without a huge conflict. If I told you to move away from the place you have built a home. There you still have a different view of the African populations,' she says.

- Some will say that you have to find compromises and that you cannot create change without it having some consequences? 

"Yes. But not at any cost. It is of no use that the climate crisis is not considered in a larger perspective. The climate measures are positive and necessary on paper, but not if they go beyond the rights of indigenous peoples and destroy nature,' she says.

Ruinous living standards

When talking about solutions with Ikal Ang'elei, she has quite a few. First of all, you have to include the local communities and the indigenous people much earlier in the process, so that they feel heard and are informed about what a company or government is planning.

"I actually think that you can get relatively far with that. To show respect so that people don't feel exploited and disempowered,' she says.

But in the end, for her, it is about the world community, and in particular the global North, realizing that the climate crisis must not simply be solved with new technology, which involves large quantities of minerals from, among other things, the soil of Africa. You have to look at the lifestyle and the system that has been created in tandem with growth and capitalism.

"You have to ask yourself if you really need two electric cars and that a spa in the garden still needs to run for three hours just because it's on green energy. Because if those living standards are to be met, societies like ours will continue to suffer because our nature and living conditions must be sacrificed for the good lives of the rich countries,' she says.

Right now, she sees many challenges ahead before important actors around the world come to that realization. But as she puts it, it's as if it's the challenges that keep her going.

"Very lucky," she says, laughing.

And so it gives her hope to feel a rapidly growing global solidarity. Across national borders and between the global north and the global south, she and other activists have formed strong bonds because they are fighting for the same change and sustainable future.

"If I'm depressed and feel like we're all going to lose in this, it helps to be able to talk to others about it."

She hopes that the solidarity she encounters can manifest itself among decision-makers and companies in both Western and African countries.

"We need to see change if a fairer world is to be created in any way," she says.

 

•  200 volunteers needed for this charity activity.
•  We aggregate in the city center at 9:00 pm.
•  Everyone will get items and we divided into 2 group to start to 2 directions.
•  We will go to the place where children usually stay and give items for them.
•  Every group has a leader and a secretary to note important problems what we will ask for help from nonprofits organization or NGOs.
•  NOTE: Everyone ensure safety and punctuality.