New Oil Developments in a Remote Area: Environmental Justice and Participation in Turkana, Kenya

• Published date: 01 September 2019
• DOI: 10.1177/1070496519857776
• Author: Tessa Mkutu,Kennedy Mkutu,Martin Marani,Augustine Lokwang Ekitela
• Date: 01 September 2019
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

New Oil Developments

in a Remote Area:

Environmental Justice

and Participation in

Turkana, Kenya

Kennedy Mkutu

1

, Tessa Mkutu

2

,

Martin Marani

3

, and Augustine Ekitela Lokwang

4

Abstract

Recent discoveries of oil and gas in eastern Africa often happen in marginalized

and underdeveloped areas, such as Turkana, Kenya, an arid county inhabited

predominantly by pastoralists. As a result of low political participation and weak

governance frameworks for the emerging hydrocarbon industry, the pastoralists

face displacement from land, exposure to environmental hazards, and exclusion

from decision-making and benefit-sharing arrangements. Their interests are further

sidelined by elite capture and a strong national development agenda supported by

international actors. Community members have aired their grievances against both

the investor and the state through protests, disrupting company operations.

This work argues that two of the pillars of environmental justice, participation and

recognition, are lacking in the county and that authentic participation should be

pursued to avoid destruction of community capabilities and conflict. Because there

is historical opposition to the state and its allies, the county government should

consider working closely with trusted providers in the county, namely, faith-based

organizations and their civil society counter parts, to bring about more authentic

participation, community empowerment, and ultimately better governance for just

distribution of benefits and harms.

Journal of Environment &

Development

2019, Vol. 28(3) 223–252

!The Author(s) 2019

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/1070496519857776

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1

Department of International Relations, United States International University-Africa, Nairobi, Kenya

2

General Practitioner, Nairobi, Kenya

3

Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, University of Nairobi, Kenya

4

County Government of Turkana, Kenya

Corresponding Author:

Kennedy Mkutu, United States International University-Africa, Off Thika Road, P. O. Box 14634-00800,

Nairobi, Kenya.

Email: kmkutu@yahoo.com

Keywords

East Africa, environmental justice, extractive industries, indigenous people, Kenya,

marginalization, oil, participation, social risks, Turkana

In 2012, Kenya announced the discovery of commercially viable quantities of oil in

the Turkana Basin in the northwest of the country. The area is remote and socio-

economically and politically marginalized, so the f‌ind seemed excellent news for all

(Opiyo & Wafula, 2012). Within a few months, Lodwar Town—Turkana County’s

small and dusty capital—was buzzing with new faces from other parts of Kenya and

the world. Local expectations about the impending oil wealth were high, while in the

political arena, various contesting groups were already talking about how to share

out the revenues. Seven years on, Kenya is now preparing to start exporting some of

the early oil, with a view to full commercial production in 2022 (Gerrits, 2017).

Oil has generated more than 1.83 billion KShs (US$18.3 million) in taxes and

fees from the main players Tullow/Africa Oil in 2018 alone (Kamau, 2018), but

not without other, less publicized costs that may be sustained longer than the

prof‌its. This article focuses on the early environmental and social risks from the

oil f‌ind that are likely to become an important issue forTurkana County (Kamau,

2018), and for the country as a whole, not least because low-level community–

investor conf‌licts have already been happening in the county fueled by grievances

over distribution of harms and benef‌its, and participation (Agade, 2017;

Johannes, Zulu, & Kalipeni, 2014; Mkutu, 2014). Demonstrations and roadblocks

by communities have been frequent, at times severely disrupting the industry’s

operations and have led all stakeholders to think about how to facilitate mean-

ingful participation processes to avoid conf‌lict. Environmental concerns have been

present among the list of grievances by the community, and because there is

uncertainty as to whether these will be adequately addressed, there is a risk that

Kenya may disappoint some of its most vulnerable citizens.

Further, the situation in Turkana is but a small part of the picture of devel-

opment and resource exploitation under Kenya’s ambitious Vision 2030 devel-

opment plan, which among other things invites foreign investment for the

development of Kenya’s remote and historically marginalized northern counties.

Oil and gas exploitation and its transport and processing form an important part

of this vision. However, Turkana has experienced one of the f‌irst and most

major developments in the country and is thus expected to inform our under-

standing of environmental justice issues in Africa’s ‘‘big push’’ for development

in remote and marginalized areas.

Turkana County, Continuity, and Change

Turkana County (see Figure 1) is located in the remote arid reaches of north-

western Kenya, sparsely inhabited by about 1.5 million people of whom the

224 Journal of Environment & Development 28(3)