Activists say local communities have not been offered a choice on whether to be resettled because of the project
By Kizito Makoye
DAR ES SALAAM, June 27 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Tanzania's decision to halt a multi-million dollar energy project to protect a wildlife sanctuary and farming land is a "victory" for vulnerable local communities, a global aid agency said.
The $569 million bioelectricity plant threatened to evict more than 1,500 villagers from their land in northern Tanzania and would have siphoned off huge amounts of water from a major river, impacting wildlife in the Saadani National Park.
Tanzania's Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa said last month the project had been halted to protect the flow of the Wami River, to safeguard wild animals in the 1,000 square km reserve.
Doug Hertzler, a senior policy analyst with Action Aid USA, said Tanzania's move was a victory for vulnerable communities at risk of losing their land without their consent.
"We are glad to see the Tanzania government has recognised that the large amount of water needed for this project would have a negative impact on the Wami River and the Saadani National Park, but the impact on local people must also be taken into consideration in future decisions," he said in a statement.
Action Aid has opposed the project because of accusations of "land grabbing" by Agro EcoEnergy which planned to construct the dam.
According to Hertzler, local communities told Action Aid in 2014 they had not been offered a choice on whether to be resettled because of the project, which was to produce ethanol from sugar and generate power for 100,000 households.
Agro EcoEnergy spokesman Ray Naluyaga denied the accusations.
Tanzania is among several African countries that have attracted foreign investors keen to take advantage of cheap land and labour for large-scale agriculture.
However, analysts say this has created problems for local communities because property deeds are hard to obtain due to inefficient bureaucracies and corruption in the land sector.
Hertzler said the process of implementing the Agro EcoEnergy project was "severely flawed" and that affected households had been prevented from investing in and improving their land.
"Local households and communities have been reliant on the land grabbed by the project to feed their families, and to provide them with a source of income," he said.
Despite the halt called to the project, he said, it was not known what would happen to land that had been earmarked for the plant in the coastal Bagamoyo district even though some of it had been recognised officially as belonging to local people.
He urged policy makers and aid agencies to support local communities so they are able to make the decisions that affect them on the future use of their land.
In an interview with the Thomson Reuters Foundation in May, Agro EcoEnergy Chairman, Per Carstedt, said he was shocked by the decision and said the Tanzanian government had ignored expert views on the project confirming it met necessary environmental standards.
(Reporting by Kizito Makoye, Editing by Jo Griffin; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, property rights and climate change. Visit news.trust.org)
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