The negative experiences of the Maasai of northern Tanzania with soil carbon projects is a microcosm of the human rights challenges facing the voluntary carbon market and the rich world’s growing tendency to renege on its climate responsibilities.

A group of Maasai representatives were in Brussels last week to voice their concerns about human rights violations connected to carbon market projects being developed on their land in northern Tanzania, covering a surface area they say is half the size of Belgium.

Speaking at an event hosted by Carbon Market Watch and co-organised by the Maasai International Solidarity Alliance (MISA), they spoke about a plethora of issues related to what they described as “carbon colonialism”, such as the threat to their traditional pastoralist way of life, the risk of renewed widescale land grabbing, forced changes to their grazing patterns, the spectre of tension and conflict between adjacent communities, corruption and the delaying of true climate action.

The failure to fully involve the Maasai, properly gain their consent and share benefits fairly with them harms the very communities these projects claim to support. It also risks delaying urgently needed in-house decarbonisation from heavy polluters in wealthy countries.

“The Global North created this mess and has to fix it and not import these problems into our communities,” asserted Maasai activist and researcher Naipanoi Ntutu, whose real name has been concealed to protect her identity. “We have always been protecting the environment and we will continue doing so in the future.”

Out to pasture

The idea that carbon market projects must bring climate benefits that would not otherwise have occurred, known as ‘additionality’, is a cornerstone of effective climate action. However, in the two proposed projects studied by MISA that have yet to be approved – the Longido and Monduli Rangelands Carbon project and the Resilient Tarangire Ecosystem project –  this concept had unforeseen consequences.  

In a bid to demonstrate additionality, the developers impose on the Maasai living in the project areas new grazing patterns, according to research carried out by MISA. These diktats from distant project developers disempowers the Maasai, limits their freedom and undermines their way of life, according to lawyer and rights defender Joseph Moses Oleshangay.

“They want to change how pastoralism functions because they have their own ideas of what they call ‘additionality,’” Oleshangay noted. “We have our traditional system of grazing, of sharing resources together. So the [project developers] are saying now if one village contracts carbon, they should not allow others to enter [their areas].”

This top-down, outside-in approach is not only patrionising and condescending towards Maasai know-how and expertise, but it also does not benefit the climate, insist the Maasai activists. “Don’t teach us how to operate in our own environment,” urged MISA’s Lekakeny Nasingoi, whose real name has also been concealed. “If civilisation means abandoning one’s culture, then we as Maasai can never be civilised. We will never leave our traditional knowledge and practices behind.”

She also referred to the potential of these projects to spark conflict between Maasai communities who have signed up and those who refused to sign.

Consent and discontent

Another cornerstone of carbon market projects, and one founded on international treaties and human rights law, is the need for free, prior and informed consent from affected local communities and indigenous peoples. While the concerned projects have formal consent from the communities with which they have contracts, this consent is too often hollow, shallow and undemocratic, the Maasai activists complain. 

This is reflected, for example, in how, for one of the projects, all the contracted communities signed almost identical agreements with the developers, which indicates that the projects did not enter into meaningful discussions and negotiations with the affected communities, asserts Oleshangay. This also contravenes Tanzanian law, which states that villages should be involved in formulating these contracts.

This is also apparent in how people in Maasai communities interviewed about the carbon projects revealed glaring gaps in their knowledge and awareness of what these projects were doing, what the consequences were for the communities and even that the contracts were meant to last for 40 years.

“I do not know about any carbon project coming to our village,” confessed one villager interviewed by MISA.“I have heard about carbon in school, but do not know at all what a carbon project is supposed to be.” 

In addition, male-dominated village councils were often the main driving force behind the decision to sign up for these projects, while women and youth were usually sidelined from the decision-making process. The inhabitants of neighbouring villages, who would be de facto impacted by the project, were also not consulted, MISA reports. Maasai communities also lacked access to neutral information and independent legal advice.

Moreover, the grievance mechanisms in place for such projects are too complex and remote for the affected communities to access effectively, which is a fairly common occurrence, as has been highlighted in previous CMW research. One village MISA visited, for instance, wished to withdraw its consent for the carbon market project but had no idea how to go about this.

Global challenge

The challenges facing Maasai communities in northern Tanzania are, unfortunately, not isolated or unique. Human rights violations have been identified with numerous projects around the world. For example, last year, Human Rights Watch uncovered egregious human rights violations against the indigenous Chong people associated with a carbon crediting project in Cambodia. Other examples include the Kariba project in Zimbabwe and a proposed project in the Oro province of Papua New Guinea.

“Unfortunately, there’s a long track record of  abuses and of rights violations in carbon market projects. This dates back to the Clean Development Mechanism, under the UN’s carbon market from the Kyoto protocol, but still continues to this day under the voluntary carbon market. Sadly and unacceptably, this is not an isolated case,” pointed out Federica Dossi, a CMW expert on global carbon markets.

This occurs in spite of the fact that both UN and voluntary carbon markets have human rights safeguards in place. “Some safeguards may even look decent on paper and in project documentation, but the problem is that they’re often used for box-ticking exercises with little meaningful verification or they’re implemented in a way that’s not at all appropriate,” Crook explained. 

For example, in a comprehensive review of 18 avoided deforestation projects (REDD+) on the voluntary carbon market that Carbon Market Watch commissioned to UC Berkeley, the researchers found that safeguards meant to ensure free, prior and informed consent and to protect the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities had severe shortcomings and were poorly enforced.

Despite the projects reviewed covering large or remote areas, with affected communities reaching, in some cases, into the hundreds of thousands, 17 of 18 projects (94%) were verified as having zero community engagement risks. Moreover, such actions as sending emails were accepted as forms of consultation, despite the fact that many affected areas have low literacy and low access to the internet. There have even been cases where project developers have been involved in violent evictions and illegal logging.

Not in our backyard

Although the climate crisis was not created by the Maasai, they are living the consequences of it. They also feel aggrieved by the fact that, despite their extremely low carbon footprint, they are being called on by large corporations and rich countries to carry the burden of their outsized emissions.

“The outside world has used the Masai land for 70 years as a laboratory for forestry conservation… now they want to use it as a laboratory for soil carbon,” observed Lekakeny Nasingoi. “Yet in the Global North, they have so many areas, so many farms that are available which have been cultivated using chemicals. Then why don’t they use their land to sink the carbon?”

The Global North, echoed Joseph Oleshangay, needs to focus on real solutions rather than look for shortcuts and distractions: “We should try to focus on true solutions, not this meandering of compliance without complying. So if the issue is emissions, let’s tell the people to

stop emitting [instead of] saying we are conserving a place in Africa.”

Grassroots vision

Owing to the failings of the two projects they analysed, MISA has demanded a five-year moratorium on soil carbon projects until a robust legal framework that protects indigenous rights and safeguards both the community and environmental benefits of these initiatives can be put in place. 

“Without strong legal safeguards, transparent processes, and genuine community consent, these projects could exacerbate existing land conflicts, create community tensions and undermine climate justice,” the MISA study of these projects concluded. “ Further, there is no scientific evidence that the imposed changes in grazing practices will result in additional carbon storage, rendering the carbon projects worthless for buyers.”

MISA also insists that the conservation of the land should be spearheaded by a Maasai vision of sustainability that preserves both the land and the communities inhabiting it. “Our community was already facing so many challenges, such as forest conservation, hunting, forced eviction and tourism development. That was the reason we wanted to have our own vision, the Masai conservation vision,” explained Naipanoi.

Grounded in indigenous peoples’ rights, social justice and co-existence with nature, this vision focuses on the coexistence between the Maasai people, their livestock and wildlife as an alternative to the separation of humans from nature by preserving the Maasai people’s connection to their pastoralist way of life.