Several countries in the Global South have already benefited from carbon credit schemes, with a few success stories, while the rest are merely catching up or still in the gestation stages of how to leverage the scheme.
Two distinct cases of Kenya and South Africa stand out. In Kenya the Lake Victoria Water Hyacinth Control Project has generated $10 million in carbon credits, supporting local communities, and promoting sustainable water management.
The South Africa Wind Farm Project has already generated $20 million in carbon credits, supporting renewable energy development, and reducing emissions. It has provided a pathway for economic diversification, reducing dependence on traditional industries, and promoting sustainable development.
In Mozambique, the carbon credit market is a Bolada, a Portuguese term for a scam- according to climate change activists that are monitoring the development of the credit schemes that have left communities counting losses of vast farmlands.
This is another means of extending capitalistic influence in low economically developed countries, according to Uzna Malunga, climate justice programs coordinator for Alternactiva-an academic activist organization pushing for social justice.
As Mozambique’s climate vulnerability has heightened over the last decade the country has been on the list of the most susceptible countries to the perils of climate change. It has extensive lowlands and alluvial plains with 40% of its topography less than 200m above sea level.
Envirotrade, a UK company, launched a REDD+ project in Mozambique’s Gorongosa National Park in 2003, promising sustainable land use and rural development. The project involved recruiting hundreds of villagers to plant trees in exchange for 7-year payments, selling carbon credits on the voluntary market, and establishing a sawmill, carpentry shop, and nursery for fruit-bearing plants.
REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) is a global initiative aimed at conserving and sustainably managing forests, particularly in developing countries. The project’s primary objective is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions caused by deforestation and forest degradation while promoting sustainable forest management and biodiversity conservation.
The Nhambita community in Gorongosa and Mabu mountain in Zambezia has been manipulated by Envirotrade which provided trees to be planted in the farmlands the community’s main source of their livelihood.
However, in 2018, Envirotrade abandoned the project, leaving behind, unfulfilled obligations, unpaid debts to villagers, hundreds of confused families, and uncared-for trees, despite contractual responsibilities extending beyond the 7-year payment period.
“The company’s sudden departure without notice or payment has caused hardship and uncertainty for the communities involved,” said Malunga.
When the project was initiated, there was a lack of consultation which resulted in the manipulation of communities, according to damning report findings from the research carried out by Alternactiva.
In terms of compensation, they were offered a paltry US$5 per hectare as compensation for planting eucalyptus trees, with only US$2 guaranteed with the other 3 depending on plant conditions.
“The community is forced to comply with such lopsided deals because they have limited access to information about carbon credits. The Nhambita community was tricked into signing bogus contracts.
“Many corporates are crooks, most of them are shelf companies that just come in to profit from communities’ lack of knowledge.
“Caborn market was installed in secret, and they lied to the community. The corporates are still here, and they keep lying to the communities and taking away their land. As for now we do not see the carbon market as a solution for anything, it is a door for those that profit to keep profiting.
“We should look at local solutions in terms of adaptation and mitigation, we feel that there are solutions that can be explored in the communities instead of importing an idea of profit, a capitalistic idea at the end of the day.”
In Mozambique, the REDD+ has helped to conceal crimes of carbon offset projects through ‘creative’ carbon accounting, ‘green’ propaganda, and endless climate commitments that companies and governments make based on misleading and false promises.