Partners fighting for rights within natural resource exploration in Uganda
A recent visit to Uganda highlighted the country as the latest example of ethical, environmental and human rights dilemmas brought forth by natural resource exploration.
Under the guise of economic prosperity and energy security, the future of Uganda’s forests, lakes, national parks, and by extension that of the people that depend on these resources, is increasingly endangered. Both ENDS partners in Uganda work with local communities to preserve these natural environments and the livelihoods that come from it.
Kikandwa Environmental Association (KEA), an organization that Both ENDS has worked with, for example, is a community based organization that addresses natural resource management. By mobilizing the community to plant trees, and training them on agroecological practices, KEA has improved food and nutrition security, reduced poverty, and improved soil fertility and biodiversity. Other Both ENDS’ partners we visited in Uganda such as SEATINI, similarly aim to protect Uganda’s natural resources and those using them by tackling unequal trade relations, and economic, social and cultural rights. For example, by addressing women’s right to land, or issues brought by GMO crops.
Displacing communities
Another partner we visited is actively advocating to halt sugar cane companies from cutting a forest that their community relies on for firewood, medicinal plants and income generating products such as honey. Expansion of pine forests for logging, or sugar cane plantations increasingly endanger these forests and displace communities reliant on them. Their successful lobbying has led to a delegation of EU ambassadors visiting the area in 2021 and pledging to secure the boundaries of the forest. This has to date not been done, something that we followed up on during our visit to the Dutch and EU embassies on this trip.
Discovery of oil
One of the newest menaces to Ugandan communities and environment is the discovery of oil, and the building of a pipeline by TotalEnergies to export this oil. EACOP will transport crude oil from the Albertine region in northwest Uganda to Tanga, a port in Tanzania from where it will be exported around the world. The oil drilling and the pipeline threatens biodiversity, water supply and fishing resources for millions of people and displaces thousands of households. It now already leads to human rights violations, especially targeted at activists speaking out against EACOP. Both ENDS is extremely concerned about the shrinking civil space in Uganda, and the safety of our partners and the local communities they work with.
A new Finance Risk Update, published recently in collaboration with Both ENDS also sets out the growing risks of the East African Crude Oil Pipeline to financiers, including banks, insurers and investors.
Traveling with two Both ENDS partners from Nigeria showed that oil exploration in Uganda risks (and in many cases already has) repeating the mistakes that led to widespread environmental devastation and social upheaval caused by oil exploration in the Niger Delta. From land grabs and displacement, to pollution and health hazards, the negative impacts are already profound, with more sure to follow if nothing is done. Local communities, reliant on land for their livelihoods, have borne the brunt of these consequences. Jacob Iniodu, from the Kebetkache Women Development Centre in Nigeria, writes about the parrallels he saw during our trip between Uganda and the Niger delta risks here.
The quest for oil, and exploitation of other natural resources in Uganda underscores the broader dilemma facing the world: the urgent need for a transition to renewable energy sources that are developed together with, and benefit local communities. Uganda is a good candidate for many off-grid renewable energy solutions. Both ENDS partners such as AFIEGO work with their communities to promote these community led solutions already.
“They told us we would get rich, and we would get jobs but instead I lost my home and my land”
Creating change
It is clear that decision makers do not sufficiently take into account the environmental destruction, human rights abuses, and devastation that natural resource exploitation projects have at the local and national level. Through our trip we were able to see the important work that our partners in Uganda do, and bring their stories back to policy makers, investors and donors in the Netherlands. We follow up this trip with new collaborations with partners and new pressure we can put on decision makers.
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Themes
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News / 18 juni 2024Impact of oil extraction on women's health in Bayelsa
In the context of Shell's imminent divestment from onshore oil industry in the Niger Delta, Both ENDS partner Kebetkache publishes a new report showing severe health and environmental challenges faced by the women of Otuabagi in the Niger Delta due to Shell's crude oil exploration. -
Press release / 27 september 2022Call to Dutch investors: get out of TotalEnergies
Utrecht/Amsterdam, 27 September 2022 - On Wednesday 28 September, Dutch civil society organisations will organise a protest at the offices of oil giant TotalEnergies in The Hague, drawing attention to the problems surrounding the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) in Uganda. They are calling on investors to get out of TotalEnergies because of this project, which is causing human rights violations and serious environmental pollution. Two weeks ago the European Parliament passed a resolution against the human rights violations linked to EACOP.
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Letter / 16 december 2024
Urgent call to halt all divestments in the Niger Delta, including Shell's refused sale of SPDC shares
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Publication / 1 juli 2016
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News / 26 november 2024The Time to Rethink Investment Rules: Amplifying Civil Society Voices
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News / 24 januari 2024Both ENDS in solidarity with Justice for Brumadinho!
272 innocent people were killed. A tsunami of toxic mud unleashed, some 12 million cubic metres of ore tailing into the surrounding areas. January 25th, 2024 is the solemn 5-year mark of the Brumadinho upstream mining dam collapse. This was Brazil’s worst environmental and industrial disaster.
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External link / 2 juli 2024 -
News / 13 november 2023Recommendations to the foreign financiers of Argentina's lithium rush
To realise the energy transition, large quantities of minerals and metals such as lithium, cobalt and rare earth metals are needed. These raw materials are mainly extracted in countries in the global South, and unfortunately this is almost always accompanied by human rights violations and environmental destruction. Today – also in light of EU Raw Materials Week that is happening this week – Argentinian organisation FARN and Both ENDS publish a joint report on the extraction of lithium in Argentina.
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Publication / 13 november 2023
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Dossier /Uganda’s Energy Future
Despite the existence of many hydropower dams, foreign investments and large government spending on energy, and new plans for hydropower, oil and gas projects, the vast majority of rural Uganda still remains without electricity. Together with our local partners we are striving towards a sustainable energy strategy for Uganda that starts from the needs and wishes of local communities.
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Blog / 30 januari 2025Brumadinho’s painful “seas of mud”
By Carolina de Moura
Six years ago, Brumadinho tailings dam I, from the Paraopeba Complex, owned by mining company Vale, collapsed. January 25th, 2019, forever changed the lives of thousands. The scars remain open, and the quest for justice, remembrance, and prevention of future mining crimes endures despite all adversities. This was manslaughter coupled with socio-environmental devastation of proportions difficult to measure. These are irreparable losses and damages that could have been avoided if it wasn’t for the greed, negligence, and irresponsibility of decision-makers at Vale, the German certification firm Tüv Süd, and the state of Minas Gerais.
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Fabio Schvartsman and Gerd Peter Poppinga attended a Securities and Exchange Commission (CVM) trial session, last Tuesday, October 1st. Poppinga was convicted by one of the CMV directors, but the second CMV director requested more time to review the case files, postponing the judgment by 60 days. Victims’ families and supporters will have to keep waiting for justice regarding one of Brazil’s worst human and environmental disasters.
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News / 26 april 2024Communities Urgent Warning Ahead of Vale S.A.’s Annual Meeting: Stop Ongoing Abuses of People and Environment
As shareholders in Brazilian mining giant Vale S.A prepare to gather online for the company’s Annual General Meeting (AGM), communities from Brazil to Indonesia criticize the company’s track record on human rights and environmental stewardship. They also point to the almost $50 billion in mounting lawsuits against the company as a risk factor that should serve as a warning sign to investors.
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Blog / 26 februari 2024Brumadinho: 5 years without justice
On January 25, 2019, Brumadinho region witnessed a tragedy-crime that claimed 272 lives, including two unborn children, affectionately called "Jewels" in response to VALE’s declarations that the company, as a Brazilian jewel, should not be condemned for an accident. However, the investigations about B1 dam collapse, at Córrego do Feijão Mine, showed that the scar left on the community and environment was not an accident, but VALE negligence.
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News / 13 december 2023Response from Both ENDS and OxfamNovib to new FMO climate fund
Both ENDS and Oxfam Novib welcome the new SDG Loan Fund launched by FMO. The fund aims to invest more than a billion euros in loans to small and medium-sized enterprises in low- and middle-income countries, in the energy, inclusive financial services and sustainable agriculture sectors. At the same time, both organisations are concerned about the impact of money from the fund on normal people in future recipient countries.
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Dossier /Communities Regreen the Sahel
In various countries in the Sahel, vast tracts of land have been restored by the local population by nurturing what spontaneously springs from the soil and protecting the sprouts from cattle and hazards.
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External link / 31 mei 2018Supporting farmer managed natural regeneration to gain ground (Annual Report 2017)
Many people in the desertifying Sahel region have to choose: claim their land back from the desert, or leave their farms behind. In 2017, Both ENDS started a new project here, introducing a method for regreening the landscape: Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR). It has proven itself in Niger, where we worked on FMNR for 15 years. By 2017, 15.000 ha of dryland had been regreened.
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Publication / 29 mei 2019
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Event / 14 april 2018, 11:30Small grants, big impacts: workshop on Africa Day
On the 14th of April, Both ENDS wil host a workshop called 'Small Grants, Big Impacts' on the annual Africa day in Amsterdam. The workshop aims to demonstrate that so called 'small grants funds' effectively deliver (devopment and climate) money where it matters, to people that need it the most. Large development banks, funds, donors and governments could use small grants funds as alternative financing mechanisms to make sure their money benefits people and their environment now and it the far future.
