Abstract
Recent discoveries of oil and gas in eastern Africa often happen in marginalized and underdeveloped areas, such as Turkana, Kenya, an arid county inhabited predominantly by pastoralists. As a result of low political participation and weak governance frameworks for the emerging hydrocarbon industry, the pastoralists face displacement from land, exposure to environmental hazards, and exclusion from decision-making and benefit-sharing arrangements. Their interests are further sidelined by elite capture and a strong national development agenda supported by international actors. Community members have aired their grievances against both the investor and the state through protests, disrupting company operations. This work argues that two of the pillars of environmental justice, participation and recognition, are lacking in the county and that authentic participation should be pursued to avoid destruction of community capabilities and conflict. Because there is historical opposition to the state and its allies, the county government should consider working closely with trusted providers in the county, namely, faith-based organizations and their civil society counterparts, to bring about more authentic participation, community empowerment, and ultimately better governance for just distribution of benefits and harms.
Keywords
In 2012, Kenya announced the discovery of commercially viable quantities of oil in the Turkana Basin in the northwest of the country. The area is remote and socioeconomically and politically marginalized, so the find seemed excellent news for all (Opiyo & Wafula, 2012). Within a few months, Lodwar Town—Turkana County’s small and dusty capital—was buzzing with new faces from other parts of Kenya and the world. Local expectations about the impending oil wealth were high, while in the political arena, various contesting groups were already talking about how to share out the revenues. Seven years on, Kenya is now preparing to start exporting some of the early oil, with a view to full commercial production in 2022 (Gerrits, 2017).
Oil has generated more than 1.83 billion KShs (US$18.3 million) in taxes and fees from the main players Tullow/Africa Oil in 2018 alone (Kamau, 2018), but not without other, less publicized costs that may be sustained longer than the profits. This article focuses on the early environmental and social risks from the oil find that are likely to become an important issue for Turkana County (Kamau, 2018), and for the country as a whole, not least because low-level community–investor conflicts have already been happening in the county fueled by grievances over distribution of harms and benefits, and participation (Agade, 2017; Johannes, Zulu, & Kalipeni, 2014; Mkutu, 2014). Demonstrations and roadblocks by communities have been frequent, at times severely disrupting the industry’s operations and have led all stakeholders to think about how to facilitate meaningful participation processes to avoid conflict. Environmental concerns have been present among the list of grievances by the community, and because there is uncertainty as to whether these will be adequately addressed, there is a risk that Kenya may disappoint some of its most vulnerable citizens.
Further, the situation in Turkana is but a small part of the picture of development and resource exploitation under Kenya’s ambitious Vision 2030 development plan, which among other things invites foreign investment for the development of Kenya’s remote and historically marginalized northern counties. Oil and gas exploitation and its transport and processing form an important part of this vision. However, Turkana has experienced one of the first and most major developments in the country and is thus expected to inform our understanding of environmental justice issues in Africa’s “big push” for development in remote and marginalized areas.
Turkana County, Continuity, and Change
Turkana County (see Figure 1) is located in the remote arid reaches of northwestern Kenya, sparsely inhabited by about 1.5 million people of whom the majority are pastoralists of the Turkana ethnic group (Turkana County Government, 2013). The area is underdeveloped, and 88% of people live below the poverty line (in comparison with 45% of all Kenyans). Primary school completion rates are low and illiteracy high, which constrains those seeking urban livelihoods and paid employment. In terms of political participation, only one third of eligible voters are actually registered to vote (Turkana County Government, 2013). About a third of Turkana are settled, farming around the county’s two main rivers or fishing on Lake Turkana. For the pastoralist majority, however, their livelihood entails herding of cattle, camels, and sheep or goats, with patterns of mobility across the rangeland influenced at the most fundamental level by rainfall patterns and water sources. Certain sites are kept in reserve for the driest times, while other sites are suitable as more permanent settlements for some of the women with young children and the elderly; such a site is known as an ere (McCabe, 2004). The more physically able pastoralists often reside in temporary cattle camps, one of these being known as a kraal. Turkana culture is intimately bound up with livestock; in addition to the useful materials such as hides and bones, cattle are used in many ceremonies and are a unit of value for exchange, bride wealth, and the forging of alliances (Gulliver, 1951).
Map of Turkana County.
Cyclical conflict between different pastoralist communities is a well-recognized phenomenon and relates to both resource competition and cultural factors. However, firearms which have proliferated in the region during the various international and civil wars in the postindependence era are responsible for severely exacerbating intercommunal conflicts and for escalating levels of livestock raids or even commercialized theft of animals (see Figure 2 for conflict dynamics in Turkana; Krätli & Swift, 2003). Notably, Turkana and the Dassanech/Merille from Ethiopia frequently clash over pasture and water sources and fishing rights on Lake Turkana. This is exacerbated by displacement of the Dassanech/Merille from their ancestral land, due to the construction of the Gibe Dam system and related agricultural projects funded by foreign investors.
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The years 2014 and 2019 saw severe clashes in the south also, between the Pokot and Turkana, related to a border dispute to political conflict which has intensified since the construction of the Turkwel Dam (Etyang, 2019; Lokiyo, 2014) and other energy and extractive developments. It resulted in severe road banditry the besieging and burning of settlements and hundreds of deaths (Ndanyi, 2015) and continues to be tense. Thus, development projects may already be seen a factor in intercommunal conflict, in addition to the more obvious community–investor conflict.
Layers of conflict in Turkana (Mkutu & Wandera, 2016).
There is also a history of conflict between Turkana communities and the state (both colonial and postcolonial) who have episodically carried out heavy-handed pacification and disarmament attempts that have been strongly resisted because the gun is the means of self-defense against raids. But apart from these operations, the state has not been greatly felt in the county. Socioeconomic and political marginalization have been the norm; road and communications networks, and general provision of services are very poor. There is quite a strong presence of civil society and faith-based organizations, though, and droughts and policy failures since the colonial era, together with intercommunal raids, have made the Turkana perennially dependent upon food aid (McCabe, 2004). A new Kenya Constitution in 2010 has devolved some national functions and budgets to county governments, which is to some extent redressing historical marginalization (Mkutu, Marani, & Ruteere, 2014).
Decisions relating to the extractive industry and development in general have so far been taken at the national level and have marginalized local decision makers as will be noted. Pastoralists across the country are generally poorly represented in political spheres, and their interests and concerns are often neglected in development and other programs. Their mobile lifestyle has made their engagement with government services more difficult, and the state has often desired to sedenterize them. However, pastoralism is often the only viable livelihood given the aridity of the counties in which they reside.
In terms of the extractive industry, British-based Tullow Oil PLC (together with its partners—Canadian-based Africa Oil Corporation and the French Company Total) is the main player in the county, with its most important installations in blocks 13T and 10BB in South Turkana where an estimated 560 million barrels of oil are available for extraction (Tullow Oil, n.d.). Another international company is also actively exploring in the northwest of the county. A major related project is the Lamu Port-South Sudan-Ethiopia Transport (LAPSSET) Corridor that is intended to consist of road and rail links and an oil pipeline from Turkana to the coast, though in the short term, oil tankers will transport crude oil from Turkana by road (LAPSSET Corridor Development Authority, 2017).
Oil, Environmental Justice, and Political Exclusion
Oil and gas is often discovered in ecologically vulnerable and marginalized areas and areas with poor governance. Carmody (2011) notes that companies from United States and France have increasingly been turning their attention to Africa, in particular in Nigeria, Angola, and Equatorial Guinea and that China is also rapidly increasing its oil investments in the continent. While most new discoveries are offshore (Ghazvinian, 2007), many discoveries are being made in peripheral or marginalized inland areas. Jordan and Chamberlain (2001) similarly note that the development necessary to access and extract resources takes place in increasingly out-of-the-way places. Such areas are often populated by indigenous people groups and have been previously seen as unproductive, with fragile ecosystems and insecurity (Watts, 2018).
The impacts of resource extraction industries on developing countries may be considered in a number of areas: economic, political, sociocultural, and environmental (Reed, 2002) and at different levels. At the macrolevel, it is well known that resource extractive industries have generally not been good at promoting macroeconomic development due to unequal agreements with host countries which allow tax breaks and other concessions and overreliance of host countries upon those resources which may destabilize the economy. Politically, resource extractive industries tend to also undermine political development by propping up undemocratic states and sometimes even becoming involved in the politics or conflicts of the country when it is in their interests. At the microlevel, dispossession from land and degradation of environmental resources can undermine local productivity and economic development. Socioculturally, industries may bring increased health problems, the breakup of local communities, the loss of culture, tensions, and conflicts, which particularly affect indigenous groups and ethnic minorities (Clark & Cook Clark, 1999). Developing countries have particular norms and circumstances that contribute to their vulnerability to these impacts, including existing historical inequities (particularly at the global level), poor democratic development, weakness of institutions and the rule of law, as well as limitations of poverty and illiteracy that prevent local people making their voices heard.
This work is concerned with environmental justice and in particular how conflict over environmental issues relates to political inclusion and participation. Environmental justice as described by Schlosberg (2013, p. 38) is concerned with the equitable distribution of “environmental bads.” At its very roots, it was concerned with the dumping of toxic waste in the backyards of poor African Americans and thus was part of a wider social justice movement. The concept of environmental justice merges with discussions on sustainable development (which considers the economic, environmental, and social aspects and implications of development), giving rise to the notion of “just sustainability.” Just sustainability, which has been the work of Agyeman, is defined as “the need to ensure a better quality of life for all now and into the future, in a just and equitable manner, whilst living within the limits of the supporting ecosystem” (n.d.). However, Schlosberg (2004) and others move notions of environmental justice beyond simply the distribution of harms and benefits, whether now or in the future, and argues that in addition to distributive justice, recognition and participation in the political processes which create and manage environmental policy are vital and interrelated elements of environmental justice. It is the elements of participation and political inclusion that this work reflects upon, in a remote and marginalized context where these were lacking, prior to the discovery of oil.
The infamous Niger Delta story showcases the extreme effects of environmental injustice and unsustainability. Displacement from land, environmental degradation, loss of biodiversity, and pollution of water sources leading to loss of livelihoods and impoverishment of “oil-bearing communities” and ultimately deadly conflict between community militia groups and the state (Hanson, 2017). But the story is not only about the environment. Agitation in the Niger Delta seems to have focused as much on recognition and the distribution of benefits as it has on harms. The Delta had been historically marginalized and had seen little development even as oil profits poured into the country. Nonviolent attempts toward effective political representation in 1990s had been met with severe repression and execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa and the other leaders of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People. Further protests were met with further military repression until some years later in 2005 the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta was formed, resolving now to use violence, mostly to destroy oil infrastructure and hit the government and multinationals where it hurt, oil profits. In the coming years, amid ongoing conflict, Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta continued to cite recognition and benefit sharing alongside environmental degradation, as their main concerns (Hanson, 2017).
In Peru, Stetson (2012) writes about the undermining of the political power of indigenous people by the state which made a series of laws to displace people from land and relax environmental laws to allow oil extraction to proceed on what was perceived to be unproductive land. Participation processes were superficial and took place after most decisions had been made, which is a familiar situation. He makes the important point that local people in Peru are not antidevelopment, but rather, they may have alternative visions of development and local knowledge about the land and the environment which need to be heard in the interests of sustainability.
These concepts are highly relevant for this article, which considers an indigenous people group who are utterly dependent on their environment and live outside of most of the political, economic, and social benefits of Kenyan citizenship. Their ethnic wisdom has been generally undervalued and their livelihood sometimes undermined by attempts to sedenterize them. They have lived and sometimes thrived in a part of Kenya that, until recent oil discoveries, was considered to be of low potential and climatically challenging. They have, among others, developed a system of land use that has largely been able to gain from the arid and semiarid environment through a spatiotemporal (space-time) mobile lifestyle. Their entire livelihood and culture has centered upon nomadic livestock rearing, and this makes them highly vulnerable to loss of land and environmental degradation especially in the era of oil exploration and development. This article considers the early impacts of the extractive industry and associated developments upon the environment and livelihood of the Turkana them, with particular reference to their political exclusion and lack of participation. The work points to early conflicts, which are considered to be alternative methods of ensuring participation and political representation in the absence of formal channels. Finally, it considers what the future may hold for the area and particularly the potential for conflict and violence if local people’s needs are ignored.
Resource Governance Frameworks
Kenyan Laws and Regulations Relevant to Oil and Gas Exploitation. a
aLabor and public health laws have not been included in the table but are also relevant.
bImportantly, these ministries may change with different governments. The list at the time of writing is sourced from MyGov.go.ke.
Bos and Gupta (2016) note (with regard to climate change) that there is a lack of political direction and coordination of the various policies and institutions surrounding environmental issues in Kenya, while the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) has too limited capacity and resource to efficiently execute its mandate. Environmental issues, they note, seem to be of low political priority leading to a contradiction between “actions and words.” To add to the confusion, since the enactment of the new constitution, there is now an extra layer of laws and institutions at the county level. Barczewski (2013) notes that in Kenya the state systems for environmental regulation suffer from “inadequate funding, corruption, a lack of engagement with important community stakeholders, gaps or duplications of regulations, and a misunderstanding by society at-large of the benefits of a sustainable project” (p. 2).
Functions and Powers of County Governments With Direct Environmental Implications (Government of Kenya, 2010).
Further, the national government is keen to attract foreign investment with minimal barriers; hence, agreements with foreign investors happen at the national level, which has a mandate to agree production sharing contracts, and community land may be compulsorily acquired “for the public good,” but counties (or, rather, their local council predecessors) have, in the case of Turkana, been sidelined in the acquisition process and are now left with the grapple of mitigating impacts at the local level. As one county official put it, “the county has no teeth” and referring to the issue of things being managed remotely from Nairobi, “when wakubwa wamesema (the big people have spoken) there is nothing anyone can do.” 2
With regard to land acquisition, an important part of the context in the Turkana case, and in several other cases, is the designation almost all of the approximately 69,000 km2 in the county as “community land.” This denotes ancestral land, collectively owned and used, usually by nomadic and seminomadic communities, and held in trust by county governments. The Acts in Table 1 attempt to enshrine and protect the rights of the communities to the same degree that private land rights-holders are protected including the provision for group registration of land parcels and compensation. However, the mapping and registration has noticeably stalled even as land acquisition for development moves on at a cracking pace all over the country. One other point to make here is that the opportunity to collectively register still does not guarantee that the right people will have the capacity to navigate the various technical barriers to group registration. This limits true inclusion and participation, as it is harder to avoid consultation with those who hold titles and know their rights.
Displacement From Land and Water and Changes to Ecosystems
The greater part of Turkana County has now been allocated to investors as oil blocks giving rights to explore and exploit. Figure 3 shows two oil fields in the northwest of the country—these are the South Lokichar development under consideration in this article. Although relatively little of the county is likely to be physically occupied, the arrival of strangers without warning can bring fear, rumors, and unrest, and even minimal restrictions on pastoral mobility can have grave consequences for access to water and pasture.
Oil blocks in Kenya, showing current well pads in Turkana.
Tullow Oil PLC notes that four well pads in two oil fields, Ngamia and Amosing in South Lokichar, are currently productive and will be used for the next 2 years in the Early Oil Pilot Scheme. Full-field development will, in the next 3 to 4 years, consist of 280 wells at 25 well pads and a central processing facility and the pipeline to Lamu port (Tullow Oil, n.d.). Each well pad itself will occupy around 10 acres (Gerrits, 2017), and several other successful well sites have been identified in the South Lokichar area, and some of these may also be developed in the future. A central processing facility may occupy several hundred acres as demonstrated in Uganda (Kwesiga, 2017) and may be fed by pipelines traversing the rangeland. Already, exploration drilling and creation of vehicle routes has caused considerable clearance of vegetation and planned infrastructure for upstream production will cause further losses. This has raised concerns about biodiversity, local climate change, and soil erosion, as well as threatening cultural sites. The presence of fenced well pads (during the exploration and development phases) has already brought practical problems of displacement from strategic routes or grazing grounds and overgrazing of other sites, demonstrating the fragile nature of the pastoral livelihood strategy. In February 2019, the Government of Kenya published two gazette notices, one for the compulsory acquisition of 6,348 ha (63 km2) for the South Lokichar development and the other for 20,618 ha (206 km2) for the LAPSSET project. Turkana County Government has now challenged the National Land Commission in court, citing lack of consultation with the county (Obare, 2019).
Displacement from water sources is another serious problem, which oil companies have attempted to mitigate in several places through the provision of water bowsers or boreholes. Water needs for the industry are quite high because water injection is required to maintain the pressure of the flow of oil. This is currently coming not only largely from boreholes but also in bowsers from the Turkwel River and is expected to increase as the site develops (Gerrits, 2017). There are now plans to pump water from the Turkwel River. The oil industry is likely to increasingly become a major competitor in the region’s water equation, which may exacerbate intercommunal conflicts over access to water or better watered pasture. Turkwel is already a site of contestation between Turkana and Pokot pastoralists. 3
Ngamia site and some of the other exploratory sites are located on what was a homestead area known as an ere, which according to an elder known as Emanman, required his large family and herds to move. He expressed the desire for participation and the issues and fears that they faced: Oil installations are blocking paths, which should have been discussed with the community. Animals will be diminished. . . . All the land is oil and it is being fenced. . . . We are not eating oil but animals. Something should be done as we cannot eat oil. What is the value of this discovery if we are sitting under the trees with nothing to eat? We do not have power and have been pushed away. If there is nothing for compensation, and if you can get nothing from ancestral land, what is good about that? You are coming from all over the world, whites and blacks – for what good are they coming? Are they just coming to take our oil?. . . . Our children have been finished in Turkana. . . . The future is hunger, animals being finished, no rain and conflict [with Pokot]. I see nothing good.
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One particular case illustrates how community land may be acquired with insufficient compensation. Near the oil fields lies a 500-acre portion of land known as Kapese. In 2012, around the time of the oil find, this land was leased to a prominent private investor for KShs 4.35 million (around US$43,500) p.a. from the then Turkana County Council (later replaced by an agreement with the county government). The official agreement was for the creation of a tourist hotel and conservancy. A benefit-sharing formula to allow the community to benefit included a microfinance scheme, a fund for academic and vocational training bursaries, and a capacity development and advisory “drop in” community center in Lokichar, 8 while 180 jobs for locals and five boreholes were also planned. An “integrated operations base,” including an eco-lodge, warehouses, and airstrip, to service Tullow Oil’s operations was envisaged at this time. 9 As security was a problem due to intercommunal conflict between Turkana and Pokot pastoralists, the conservancy model of land management, which has been widely adopted as a conservation and rangeland management strategy elsewhere in the country, was decided upon, which then allowed armed National Police Reservists to be deployed as guards/scouts. The conservation organization, the Northern Rangelands Trust, came on board in 2013 to establish the conservancy in Kapese, while Tullow and Africa Oil PLC would agree in 2015 to provide the funding for this over 5 years as part of their corporate social responsibility efforts. 10 Political and local leaders were engaged and began to come on board. In 2014, the base was then leased to Tullow Oil as an operations base for a considerable profit. 11
In May 2013, Turkana communities demonstrated against the investor, burning and destroying property worth KSh 6 million, including huge tents and fencing poles. They cited displacement and the improper acquisition of their land. 12 The protest movement was joined by local professionals, civil society, and academia and reached the attention of the county government in 2015. They protested the inadequate nature of participation and that pastoralists had not benefited from the project (some said that they had been informally told that they would receive US$5 per tourist bed per night). Moreover, the area was said to be another prime grazing site that they had lost (Turkana County Government, 2015). In early 2018, 200 Tullow Oil workers residing in the camp were held hostage for the greater part of a day by angry community members, again protesting the way in which the camp management had undermined them (Etyang, 2018).
Following the objections, the conservancy plan was suspended, although the investor and the Tullow workers’ camp and airstrip are still operational. 13 The case raises questions about the lack of controls over acquisition of community land, the ease with which the supposed trust-holder consented despite the lack of evidence that the project would be in the public interest, and the questions of what counts as adequate compensation and by whom this should have been provided.
In addition to the space required for well pads, processing facilities, and worker camps, roads have been built or are planned to service the industry, and ultimately the LAPSSET Corridor and associated tourist sites which will pass through pastoralist community land. In other parts of Kenya, these developments have led to speculative private land grabbing that has further curtailed pastoralist movements, disrupting their livelihoods and leading to conflicts (Bond & Mkutu, 2017). This prompted residents in Isiolo to demand that the Community Land Act is fulfilled quickly and that they receive title deeds (Abdi, 2018). The LAPSSET strategic environmental assessment report points out that one alternative livelihood strategy likely to be employed is charcoal production which involves cutting trees. Thus, “the cost of pushing pastoralists into poverty is likely to manifest in the loss of natural vegetation cover” (LAPSSET Corridor Development Authority, 2017, p. xxvi). Water needs for the LAPSSET project and the local population are, according to the county Governor, a “grave concern.” 14 Lake Turkana is already feared to become depleted as a result of the Gibe Dam projects and many uncertainties over the much-publicized aquifers (LAPSSET Corridor Development Authority, 2017).
Process Concerns
Environmental and Social Impacts of Upstream Oil Processes (Devold, 2013; Gerrits, 2017).
Waste management is a concern of communities and their representatives in Turkana, with many allegations of dumping of toxic waste and leakage of the waste into water sources. People have complained that their animals are dying after ingesting contaminated grass (Mbugua, 2017; Muiruri, 2017). The company, however, denied the presence of chemicals and said that it was only dumping mud waste with NEMA’s approval. The company also noted that it has created temporary transfer center locations for dumping; sometimes unsuccessful and abandoned wells have been used for this purpose. 15 Periodic heavy rains and runoff such as those that have occurred in early 2018 can increase the spread of toxic chemicals to land and water sources, and Turkana’s Lodwar-Loperot aquifer is said to be vulnerable to contamination.
The environmental and social impact assessment (ESIA) notes that hazardous is expected to comprise at least 50 barrels a month in the early oil project (to increase significantly later) and is contracted to a NEMA-approved contractor for transport and disposal (Tullow Oil, n.d.). The only method available for disposal in Kenya is incineration that takes place in Nairobi and cannot completely destroy the waste. Plans for a facility in Turkana County have been mentioned (Senelwa, 2017). Local entrepreneurs have been contracted to transport the waste. Sometimes this has the effect of giving local elites a stake in the company’s success, which interferes with their representation of community interests (Government of Kenya (GOK)/Kenya National Commission for Human Rights, 2017). A Government report in 2016 detailed how plastic liners for temporary waste dumping sites in Turkana had somehow been acquired by communities and used as roofing material, exposing people to hazardous chemicals (GOK Ministry of Energy and Petroleum, 2016).
The gas flaring process releases emissions of several toxic gaseous byproducts together with uncombusted methane and volatile organic compounds, which contributes both to climate change and to acid rain. In Turkana, people believed that flaring was contributing to long delays in rain, and some have complained of chest problems (GOK/Kenya National Commission for Human Rights, 2017) as a result of gas flaring, which on one occasion was said to produce black smoke lasting for 3 days. Some community members consulted by the company connected flaring to miscarriage of livestock (Tullow Oil, n.d.). The ESIA for the early oil development concludes that emissions are not a concern, being minimal in one site, and because there are no residents in the vicinity of the other (Tullow Oil, n.d.; although pastoralists are mobile and will have to be informed to keep out of the area). However, this is likely to become more of an issue during the full-field development.
Turkana County have reported that noise from machines and vehicles was said to be a problem near the installations, scaring livestock and wildlife away from certain pastures and causing pastoralists to also move into new areas that have sometimes caused conflict or overgrazing (Turkana County Government, n.d.).
Development and Urbanization Impacts
Gerrits (2017) notes that a total of 296 permanent or seasonal settlements have been, are being, or will be affected by, or are in the vicinity of Tullow’s activities in blocks 13T and 10BB. In the areas to be developed further, there are 11 permanent settlements (2 are major, having more than 2,000 people, while 9 are considered to be minor settlements) and 3 seasonal settlements.
Corporate social responsibility activities by the company in the South Lokichar area have brought scholarships, development, school-building projects, and road improvements local to the oil installations. 16 Turkana County (Turkana County Ministry of Energy and Environment, n.d.) comments that education is an area in which the company has done particularly well. With regard to jobs, the company has attempted to employ as many locals as possible where unskilled labor is required, although these jobs are often not sustainable, due to the changing operational phases (seismic surveys, exploration, development, production, and decommissioning). Furthermore, oil is a largely mechanized industry with little call for unskilled workers. Many of the protests since 2012 have surrounded the issue of benefit sharing, that is, jobs and tenders. There are perceptions of exclusion and instances of clan competition for jobs and evidence in some cases of elites managing to secure the tenders (Agade, 2017).
In the same way that initial land alienation for oil activities led to deforestation, urbanization around the oil camps has done the same and has also led to overuse of forest resources for shelter and fuel. The county does not yet have any licensed solid waste (litter) disposal sites; hence, solid waste is currently building up in temporary sites, and livestock may be seen feeding on it. Furthermore, there is no liquid waste (sewage) management, with septic tanks being used by those with resources, and open drains often being used by those without. 17 Turkana’s rains are notoriously heavy when they do come and cause flash flooding which is likely to spread disease in such a situation.
Economic changes may be briefly mentioned. Prices of commodities, land, and rents in Lokichar increased markedly during the early phase of oil exploration: Hotel room prices rose 10-fold in a 3-year period, as did land allocations in nearby Lokichar town, 18 making them out of reach for locals. The cost of goats also increased, which was mainly beneficial to local people, although it also encouraged stock theft 19 and encouraged a cash economy to replace barter trade which supports the most poor. However, the boom slowed down 20 as a new phase began, and this affected some who had abandoned herding or schooling for the oil or service industries (Agade, 2017). In terms of social and cultural changes, people have expressed fears about urbanization, cars, and threats to their culture and way of life. 21 Importantly, people are not used to traffic, and on one occasion, a young boy died after being hit by an industry vehicle. As a response to this, the company employed a large number of road marshals from among the local people outside its sites. Some concerns were raised in the initial stages about disruption to cultural sites and graveyards (Agade, 2017). It is likely as the number of roads and people increase in the area that many young men will choose to abandon their pastoral livelihoods for work in the urban areas. Motorcycle taxi or boda boda is one of the main occupations for Kenyan youths with low education. In another northern county, Isiolo, where rapid development is expected due to the LAPSSET Corridor and accompanying infrastructure, there has been a massive increase in the sector in recent years as young herders had acquired motorcycles, attracted by the cash returns which are greater than those with pastoralism. However, the adverse effects were already manifest; unqualified and underage youths with poor road safety skills, fatal road traffic accidents, and rising levels of crime and violence in which an operator may be the culprit, the unwitting accomplice, or the victim (Mkutu & Mkutu, 2018).
People have also voiced concerns about “outsiders” bringing HIV, prostitution, and other threats to people’s lifestyle to Turkana (Agade, 2017). Crime has increased around oil installations, as has prostitution that increases the potential for gender violence and child sexual abuse. Mercy Corps (2015) note that in times of scarcity due to drought, young girls are often sent by families to work in urban areas as domestic workers, or selling produce or alcohol, and can end up working as prostitutes; moreover, girls have neither the bargaining power nor the knowledge about safe sex to avoid HIV/AIDS. This trend is well recognized where there is an influx of workers into workers’ camps and construction of roads frequented by long-distance truck drivers. Some nongovernmental organizations and faith-based organizations are currently attempting to sensitize youths on these dangers.
Local Participation Mechanisms
Poor participation processes in the initial stages of oil and gas exploration led to indignation, together with fear and misunderstanding, and contributed to community protests and roadblocks, according to several commentators (Constantaras, 2014; Mkutu & Wandera, 2016; Tukana County Government, n.d.). A report by Turkana County Government raised several concerns about participation. One concern was that politicians tended to dominate and make agreements prior to the meetings and that the community was therefore marginalized. Other structures designed to bring together local elders and company representatives, known as district advisory committees, were flawed by nepotism and corruption. Meetings took place in urban venues that were difficult for communities to access, and Community Liaison Officers (community members hired by the company to liaise with the community) were at first rather defensive, and genuine participation did not result (Mkutu & Wandera, 2016).
The company, Tullow PLC, responded to concerns about participation and made efforts to better understand and engage the local communities through publishing, among others, a Turkana-specific stakeholder engagement framework containing detailed information on Turkana society, local informal governance structures, and potential social impacts, together with mapping of settlements and stakeholders. It notes that prior to each new stage or entry into a new area, there is systematic engagement with various levels of stakeholders, including the community within a 5- to 10-km radius of the area, together with agreements on community benefits. Some accessible illustrated information has also been provided about the industry processes currently available in both English and Kiswahili, although not in the local Turkana language (see Gerrits, 2017, appendices). Furthermore, there are information centers in four major settlements in the county for the public to access (Tullow Oil, n.d.).
A full ESIA for the Early Oil Pilot Scheme Phase II is available on the Tullow website in Swahili and English and in both full and nontechnical summary formats (Tullow Oil, n.d.). This does not refer to the full-field development of 25 well pads but to a 2-year period of smaller scale extraction from existing well pads and degassing of the oil in an onsite facility. The company notes that it first engaged in scoping consultations with key stakeholders from state and nongovernmental organizations and the media, followed by more detailed consultations closer to the local communities. These consultations included two public barazas attended by at least 100 people in areas local to the oil installations as well as several meetings with local elders and local civil society and faith-based organizations. In the latter ESIA consultations, the most common issues raised (in almost equal proportion) related to community aspects (health, safety and security, benefits, cultural heritage, and social maladies); environment (water, air quality, biology, pollution, traffic, visual, and soil); and engagement.
As noted, community grievances have resulted in frequent demonstrations and roadblocks and at times more severe investor–community conflict, severely disrupting industry operations and forcing the company to improve participation processes (Johannes, Zulu, & Kalipeni, 2014; Mkutu, 2014, 2017). This has occurred in the early stages of oil industry development, which is to scale-up its operations in the coming years as noted.
Political Participation Since Devolution
As described, government policies and institutions are weak, and while devolution has provided some Turkana elites with political power, including creation of a county assembly, mechanisms for political empowerment of Turkana pastoralists are as yet lacking. One of the Constitutional roles of the county government is ensuring and coordinating the participation of communities and locations in governance at the local level, and assisting communities and locations to develop the administrative capacity for the effective exercise of functions and powers and participation in governance at the local level. (Fourth Schedule Part 2, The Constitution of Kenya)
Discussion
The Turkana people are vulnerable to several “bads” of resource extraction and associated development, while the country as a whole may get more of the “goods”—borrowing Schlosberg’s (2013, p. 38) terminology. Where people depend heavily upon land and its resources, environmental harms can directly translate to economic and social harms. In the early stages of oil development, communities have already experienced problems of displacement, environmental degradation causing human and animal health concerns, problems of urban unplanned development, and associated harmful sociocultural changes. It is worth considering how, over the years, Turkana pastoralists’ subsistence upon their semiarid ancestral lands has been a hard one, punctuated by seasonal droughts with stock losses and reliance upon aid which began to be provided in the 1920s (Good, 1988). When this somewhat precarious though equally tenuous existence is fully understood (which it may not be by investors and policy makers), it will be seen that any real or even perceived threats to mobility, safe access to water sources, and to the health of livestock are absolutely critical. The sex industry is a particular problem where poverty (in this case as a result of strained livelihoods) and in-migration coincide. Carmody (2011) points out that in Equatorial Guinea, where the oil industry provides few local jobs in itself, the sex industry is a form of job creation that has sprung up around oil camps and “results in sexually transmitted diseases which puts a strain on the rudimentary and under-funded health infrastructure of the country” (p. 119). Similarly, in Bugala Island, Uganda, where forests were cleared and farmers displaced to make way for palm plantations, local men turned to fishing, and women to prostitution to buy the fish (Carmody & Taylor, 2016). This threat is all the worse in Turkana because of the culture of polygamy leading to many women being unwittingly exposed. Ignoring these environmental and social risks will have a detrimental effect on community capabilities to function (Schlosberg & Carruthers, 2010) and may result in worse suffering and dependency rendering the Turkana pastoralists an underclass and a social problem that policy makers wish away.
As in much of the developing world, the risk of environmental injustice is exacerbated by delays, weaknesses, and irregularities in the legal, policy, and institutional frameworks. This brings to mind the words of Julius Nyerere, the first president of Tanzania, who urged that the minerals should stay in the ground until the state institutions had sufficient capacity to manage their extraction. It also recalls the problems of the Chad pipeline project described by Pegg (2011), who notes that construction and export went full steam ahead, and faster than anticipated, while institution building and other capacity-building interventions designed to mitigate harms and maximize benefits to locals, lagged behind. Considerable effort is therefore needed to inform, prepare, capacity build (Cole & Foster, 2001), and empower communities, affording them recognition and respect (Schlosberg, 2004), which will also enhance political inclusion, and could serve to avert environmental and social catastrophe in this case. It must be seen as possible for the presence of oil development to add local benefits in ways which matter to pastoralists such as the provision of water (as much as roads), and security for herds. Furthermore, since faith-based organizations such as the Catholic Church and the Salvation Army have had a significant presence in Turkana when state presence has been minimal, particularly in the areas of health and education, it is plausible that the County Government could enhance their ties with these and with civil society organizations to address these aspects of environmental justice.
Bridge (2004) makes the point that the problem is not always one of “cleaner production” or “environmental standards” but more of recognition of rights. He goes on to say that as in other social movements, recognition as a legitimate partner in the debate is as important as the distributional outcome. This may, however, mean that the communities have alternative local visions of development. In most cases, including the one discussed, however, communities are invited to participate much later in the process, after work is already underway, severely diminishing the value of any participatory processes that follow. Political marginalization has always been an aspect of environmental justice discourse, as Schlosberg (2013, p. 39) notes, quoting Mohai, Pellow, and Timmons-Roberts (2009), “industry and government seek the path of least resistance to development” so poor and racial minorities who have less political power are less able to resist. In Turkana, efforts by the company to effect genuine participation must be acknowledged; however, the production sharing contract was signed some years ago without the involvement of the communities or their local administrators (and trust-holders of their land), which would not have been the case if the area and people were not already politically marginalized. The concept of participation needs to be seen in the broadest sense, that is, not simply the processes of regular contact with the company regarding the issue at hand, but effective political participation at the county and the national level, which can enshrine recognition of the citizenship and rights of the Turkana people.
The case raises an important question about the division of responsibility between the investor and the state for the participatory aspects of environmental justice. This is not forgetting, of course, that there are other actors, including community members themselves, responsible for the realization of this goal; however, we focus on the state and the investor for now. In this case, much of the responsibility for environmental and social justice and participation seems to have been left to the company, due to weak state capacity among others. Furthermore, while participation efforts by the company made use of local governance structures by including elders who are supposed to represent their communities, beneath this, there is a layer of internal marginalization that is difficult for companies to break through, that is, participation by women, youths, and persons with disability (although in terms of tendering, the company have given a contract to a large women’s group). It is arguable to what extent the company can reasonably be expected to mitigate both the external and internal cultural barriers to participation.
The twin changes of devolution and development in Turkana could be seen as an opportunity to reverse marginalization, which is a broad constitutional requirement. In terms of the role of the Turkana County Government, political aspirants aim to be seen as protectors of local rights including the right to a healthy environment, but Turkana elites may act both in self-interest and in the communities’ interest as the work demonstrates. Elite capture by the company is one phenomenon evident in Turkana, which is particularly difficult to prevent where the company has facilities such as an airstrip and is conducting corporate social responsibility projects such as classroom building and scholarships and providing essentials such as water, but with a strong system of accountability, it could be prevented with regard to specific contracts, jobs, and tenders. Although the train has already left the station, it may be possible, through a multiagency approach, to ensure the right checks and balances are applied, and the devolved context offers an opportunity to think and do things differently.
While the oil extraction and the wider LAPSSET Corridor projects may been seen as improving the attractiveness of northern Kenya as an investment destination, it is important to recognize these ambitious projects will take place in an area where the majority have a long tradition of poor participation, and even animosity against the state. Protests and riots are well understood to be a mechanism for expression of grievances when the usual political processes have failed. Historically, a kind of “participation” through violent resistance is fairly common. It is also clear from the case that Turkana people are ready to protest over the perceived balance of harms and benefits, vis-à-vis displacement, environmental degradation, and jobs. As yet, these protests by the Turkana have been unarmed but have resulted in considerable damage to property and inconvenience to employees and operations of the company.
In the event of ongoing political and economic marginalization, in Turkana, as in the Niger Delta case previously mentioned, both the motive and the capacity for violent protest and opportunistic banditry are present. In June 2018, communities involved the oil company in a separate dispute, blocking the base from sending out five trucks of oil to Mombasa, as a means of airing grievances against the government for failing to protect them against cattle rustling by Pokot pastoralists from Baringo County (Lutta, 2018). Conflict between the community and the investor could also be complicated by existing armed intercommunal conflict that is already a perennial problem in Kenya’s pastoral areas, and as the earlier case illustrates, community–state conflict. Azar’s work on protracted social conflict is a useful framework here. To mention briefly, he identifies preconditions of conflict, such as “communal content”—that is, an identity group that is often disarticulated from the state; the deprivation of human needs, be they security, development, political access, or identity; poor governance and low political capacity; and last, international interests in the form of political-military or economic linkages. With these preconditions satisfied, protracted social conflict is more likely. However, it is not inevitable; it depends on a multitude of factors including choices by the communal group and the state. If environmental justice in Turkana is seen in terms of human needs in the context of political marginalization and poor governance, this framework also offers hope for conflict resolution through inclusion and empowerment. The county government could potentially provide the forum for this to take place, particularly with regard to the 5% of oil revenue being held in trust for the communities, which may be a potent issue in the future.
Conclusion
The Turkana case brings out the themes of vulnerability of the communities to displacement and environmental degradation, which is partially related to inadequate participation in decision-making on the oil project, but on a deeper level is the result of historical economic, social, and political marginalization, as well as weak governance frameworks and a rapidly advancing capitalist agenda supported by outside donors. Participation has been attempted by the investor but is unlikely to sufficiently mitigate these long-standing problems. Devolution and the creation of county governments offers some hope for more localized decision-making but is also plagued by as-yet low capacity and the capture of elites by investors.
With a massive presence of civil society and a long history of faith-based organizations, who are well trusted in the county and are the main providers of certain services, these stakeholders should be brought in to help the county government mediate an authentic participation process. Representatives from these organizations and the county government could be part of an inclusive committee to mediate between community members and the state and investor; act as a watchdog on environmental, social, and elite capture issues; and assist in just distribution of the 5% revenue allocation. Furthermore, while change is inevitable, the Turkana need to have the capacity to make decisions about how that change will take shape. Several agencies are already working on various aspects of empowerment and could be better coordinated and facilitated in this work. The National Government needs to ensure that the regulatory bodies such as NEMA have adequate capacity and resources to do their work effectively and that the National Government Administration are trained and made aware of the issues of resource extraction in peripheral areas and how to mitigate them.
Finally, Kenya’s discovery of oil and gas is a blessing due to much needed revenue to fund its development vision and burgeoning needs of its population, while the country also needs to honor its loan obligations to international and domestic lenders. Given these powerful agendas, it is likely that local rights will be sidelined unless brought decisively to the fore, and community capabilities will be debilitated. Given what we already know about grievances of marginalized local communities and potentials for violent conflict in oil-producing areas, it is worth acting early to ensure adequate participation and, more than that, political inclusion and empowerment that are probably the strongest tools to mitigate environmental and social risks.
Footnotes
Acknowledgments
The authors thank Turkana County Government and the many other respondents who have given helpful information.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared the following potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Augustine Lokwang works as a security advisor within the County Government of Turkana, which is a potential conflict of interest. The other authors do no have any conflict of interest to declare.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The authors acknowledge the Norwegian Agency for Development Corporation who funded the lead author’s attendance at the International Association for Impact Assessment 2018 conference in Durban, South Africa, where this article was first shared. Some of the findings were gathered over several years, thanks to funding from Open Society Initiative East Africa and Danish Demining Group.