The Luangwa Community Forests Project, Zambia: “The project shouldn’t issue any credits because it’s not really reducing deforestation”
The Luangwa Community Forests Project, Zambia: “The project shouldn’t issue any credits because it’s not really reducing deforestation”
Italian TV channel Rai 3 travelled to Zambia to investigate where Eni is buying its carbon offsets
“We’re in the heart of Southern Africa along the Luangwa River in Zambia.” That’s the start of a news report that was broadcast yesterday on the Italian TV channel Rai 3’s Report programme. Luca Chianca, a journalist with Report, travelled to Zambia to take a look at the Luangwa Community Forests Project.
“Today, even though this vast area is protected, white tourists are allowed to hunt,” Chianca says. “Upon our arrival to welcome us is a carcass of a lion, left here as a trophy.”
“We have animal problems,” Chriss B Zulu, one of the villagers living in the project area tells Chianca. “Elephants often destroy our crops and we have to walk for days to get to the nearest town to buy something to eat.”
Chianca asks him whether it’s right that white men come here on safari to kill lions. “They are licensed,” Zulu replies. “It’s included in the programme.”
The “programme” is the Luangwa Community Forests Project, which started in 2013, Chianca explains. Covering an area of 943,646 hectares it is Africa’s largest REDD project and the continent’s largest conservation project.
Eni’s greenwash
Since November 2019, Italian oil and gas company Eni has been an “active member of the governance of the Luangwa Community Forests Project”. In 2021, Eni bought 1.4 million carbon credits from the project. In 2022, the figure rose to 1.7 million, and the company anticipates buying a similar number this year.
In the studio, Report’s host, Sigfrido Ranucci, explains that,
“Eni’s decarbonisation strategy, through these projects, plans to offset millions of tons of CO₂ to reach net zero by 2050, without having to give up its fossil business.”
The problem comes when you do the calculations Ranucci says. The Luangwa Community Forests Project anticipates that it will generate 80 million carbon credits over the project’s 30-year life.
The Luangwa REDD project “has no impact”
Luca Chianca interviews Thales West, assistant professor at the Department of Environmental Geography at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. West previously worked to develop carbon projects, but changed his mind.
He explains why:
“Because the more I visited the areas of the project, the more sceptical I became that they were actually working. The big problem is to define from the beginning the real degree of deforestation of the area in the absence of the project. Because if you overestimate it, the project is no longer credible.”
Chianca asks him about the Luangwa project. “It’s like it has no impact,” West replies.
This is a serious problem, West says, “because it means that the project shouldn’t issue any credits because it’s not really reducing deforestation.”
It also means that the claims of the companies that buy offsets from the project are invalid, West says.
Chianca speaks to Gerad Mulowa, the chief of Luembe, a municipality within the project area. He asks him whether there was heavy deforestation in the area before the project started.
“There wasn’t much deforestation but today it is certainly more under control,” Mulowa replies.
In December 2022, BeZero, a carbon credit ratings agency downgraded the Luangwa REDD project from A to B. That means that, “The credit issued by the project has a low likelihood of achieving 1 tonne of CO₂e avoidance or removal.”
Sebastien Cross, the co-founder of BeZero tells Chianca that,
“A large part of the project area is located within a national park that was already under conservation. So the likelihood that the carbon credit project is making a difference is unclear.”
Cross talks about the other benefits of the project, such as biodiversity impacts and socio-economic impacts.
Benefits for communities?
Chianca speaks to Ives Mawanza a primary school teacher in Mushalira. The money from Eni’s carbon offset purchases has paid for a new school. It was built a year ago, but it still stands empty. “Because the building has not yet been officially entrusted to the school and the students cannot use it,” Mawanza says.
There are no desks and no chairs.
“We imagine that the company is making a lot of money from this project and we wonder why they do so little for us,” Mawanza says.
Mulowa, the chief of Luembe, tells Chianca that, “The money we get is not enough.”
“They don’t tell us how much money they make, but this year they gave us about €50,000 and most of this money goes to transport the material for building in these remote areas.”
Chianca visits a village a few kilometres from the protected area. The organisation that manages the money from the project for this area, the Luembe Community Forests Management Group (CFMG) has built an office and some houses.
Laban Ng’Ambi, the president of Luembe CFMG received a motorbike with the money from sales of carbon credits. “It goes very well,” Ng’Ambi says. The Luembe CFMG also received two land cruisers and a truck.
Chianca talks to Joseph Salaka, a small farmer who grows cotton near to the protected area. “They don’t explain to the community what’s going on,” Salaka says. “We know nothing of what they are doing.”
Population growth?
One of the initiatives promoted by the project involves avoiding an increase in the population. “This area also has a growing human population,” the website of BioCarbon Partners, the project developer, states.
“Africa’s population is projected to double by 2050 to 2.5 billion people, meaning more than a quarter of the world’s people will live in Africa,” the website also states.
“But here we are talking about areas with very low density, with small villages along the main roads,” Chianca notes.
A 2021 report by Greenpeace Italy found that population density in the reference area is much higher than that in the project area. In addition, BioCarbon Partners used an estimate of what the population in the project area will be in 2045 when the project ends, not what it is today.
Luca Manes, of the NGO ReCommon tells Chianca that,
“There would seem to be a strong inconsistency between the data presented in the initial maps and the real data regarding population density, clearly if the data is lower, as we believe it is, there is a lower risk of deforestation and therefore also the calculation on carbon credits it needs to be revised, it needs to be revised downwards.”
Nevertheless, the project is listed on Verra’s registry and is certified under Verra’s system.
Axel Michaelowa of the University of Zurich tells Chianca that in Verra’s advisory committees, “we find companies, electricity utilities, oil and gas companies”.
Asked whether this is a “major conflict of interest”, Michaelowa replies,
“Yes it can be if these standards only want to generate a lot of carbon credits. More credits generated translate into money in those who invested obviously this creates a tendency not to be very serious in the applied methodology.”
I don't blame the reporter for mis informing the world on the reed+ project in the Luangwa valley of Zambia. The forum isn't enough for me to argue and debate what the reporter wrote. It's just unfortunate that this report is so negative. Regards. Senior Chief Luembe of Nyimba in Eastern Zambia.
Great reporting, thank you!
As always, there is on-going fudging in the carbon-credits business in every possible way, including lack of funding of local peoples and projects.
But with oxygen rather than carbon pricing, whether or not a project area has additionality or not is irrelevant - if the biosystem is intact, they could get real payments for the oxygen produced and the source of those funds is from the rich North as they pay for oxygen removed from the atmosphere. And even better, all this can go on without a polluting corporation receiving any indulgences! Obviously, too simple to consider!