Franziska Marfurt, Fabian Käser, Samuel Lustenberger
In the year 2010, Addax Bioenergy, a Swiss-based company, leased 57’000 hectares of land in Sierra Leone to produce biofuel for the European market. The provision of money by various international development banks forced the company to comply with high social and environmental standards for the implementation of the project. For this reason, various UN agencies labeled the project a best-practice example in the area of large-scale land acquisition projects. However, our in-depth field research in two affected villages showed that the company failed to understand the complex dynamics of the social context and the land tenure system on the local level. Findings reveal problematic implications for different groups of affected people. The land acquisition reduced people’s access to land and associated common-pool resources that are important for their livelihoods. Although the company made an effort to inform people and seek their consent to the land lease, many groups were excluded from consultation and compensation processes. Customary land titles of traditional landowning families were formalized and the male heads of these families were consulted and compensated for the land that was leased by the company. Land-using groups such as women and migrants, who previously had access to land and resources through secondary user rights, were neither consulted nor compensated by the company for the loss of their rights to use land, access water resources and harvest fruits. The loss of these common pool resources destroyed their previous earning opportunities and livelihoods without adequate compensation provided by the company.
However, empirical data also reveals the capacity of affected people to develop coping strategies in order to deal with and influence the transformed institutional setting. In one community, women started protesting against further land take by the company. Through alliances with other local and national actors, they were able to hamper the land take and prevent further deterioration of livelihoods.
In June 2015, Addax Bioenergy ceased its operations in Sierra Leone because the project never became economically viable. After a year of uncertainty, Sunbird Bioenergy, a company with close ties to China New Energy Limited, became the new majority owner and operation manager of the Bioenergy project. According to monitoring reports from NGOs (SILNORF, Bread for All), the company is working very non-transparently. Sunbird has stopped the monthly meetings with affected communities and is allegedly paying land lease payments too late, if at all.
Publications:
MARFURT, F., KÄSER, F. & LUSTENBERGER, S. 2016. Local Perceptions and Vertical Perspectives of a Large Scale Land Acquisition Project in Northern Sierra Leone. Homo Oeconomicus, 1-19. DOI 10.1007/s41412-016-0020-5
MARFURT, F. (n.d.). Gendered Impacts and Coping Strategies in the Case of a Swiss Bioenergy Project in Sierra Leone. In: Haller, T.; Breu, T.; De Moor, T.; Rohr & C; Znoj, H.P. (eds). Commons in a ‘Glocal’ World: Global Connections and Local Responses. Routledge. (forthcoming).
LUSTENBERGER, S. 2014. Addax Bioenergy Sierra Leone. Analysis of the Implementation Process of a Large Scale Land Acquisition Project from the Perspective of Assemblage Theory. Master Thesis. University of Bern.
KÄSER, F. 2014. Ethnography of a Land-deal. A Village Perspective on the Addax Bioenergy Project. Master Thesis, Institute of Social Anthropology at the University of Berne.
MARFURT, F. 2016. Ethnography of Land Deals. Local Perceptions of a Bioenergy Project in Sierra Leone - Expections of Modernity, Gendered Impacts and Coping Strategies, Master Thesis, University of Bern.
