Many companies these days are promoting a clean, green image. Many of them are making genuine efforts in this regard. Some, though, use greenness to cover up some highly questionable practices.
Take for instance the Canadian company Bedford Biofuels. Its web attests to its sustainability credentials with its current front page singing the praises of its Jatropha* project in Kenya. To quote:
Because of its EMPOWER program, Bedford Biofuels is a proud member of the Clinton Global Initiative. EMPOWER is funded through Bedford’s investment offering and will bring food security, health care, improved housing and education to the local people in close proximity to Bedford’s plantations in Kenya.
Now, here’s a little excerpt from an article that appeared in the Guardian last month. It’s title – Biofuels land grab in Kenya’s Tana Delta fuels talk of war
The delta’s people are trying to fight their own government over the huge blocks of land being turned over to companies including the Canadian company, Bedford Biofuels, which was this year granted a licence by the Kenyan environmental regulator for a 10,000-hectare jatropha “pilot” project. A UK-based firm, G4 Industries Ltd**, has been awarded a licence for 28,000 hectares.
At the site where the former villagers from Gamba Manyatta were told to relocate, elder Bule Gedi Darso, 57, shows the foul-smelling stream that they have to draw their water from. “This is not a good place. Children have died, we have typhoid and malaria now. We were healthy before and our children went to school. This river is the drainage and pesticides from all the big farms. The proper river has been diverted to irrigate them and now we just get their poison. When we were evicted they showed us the maps, and we saw many more villages who don’t yet know they are to be evicted too. Where will they all go?”
I wonder if Bedford’s plans to bring “food security, health care, improved housing and education to the local people” includes those forcibly evicted from their traditional homes!
Is the biofuel you consume produced at the expense of some hapless group of innocents far from these shores? Next time you fill up with E10, spare a thought for the people of the Tana Delta.
*Jatropha is a genus of plants currently getting a lot of attention in the biofuels world because of the high oil content of its seeds.
**G4 Industries Ltd has since withdrawn form its involvement in the Tana Delta.
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