Kenya: Collaboration with New Zealand on oil drilling

Environment   Oct 19, 2017 by Melissa Joe

For this project, we (Kenya) collaborated with New Zealand to form a bilateral group. We opted for WhatsApp as our means of communication, but this soon proved to be a difficult process due to the major time difference between the two parties. Regardless of this hurdle, we still managed to come up with substantial work.

Coincidentally, we both have case studies concerning oil drilling - according to activity 2c - and so this made our choice simple. New Zealand concentrated on deep sea oil drilling on one of their blog posts while we targeted oil drilling on land (both occurring in our countries respectively). Through both case studies, it was realized that both nations experienced severe droughts which begun and went on around the same period of time. These of course were as a result of the negative environmental impacts that are brought about by the mining, drilling and excavation of land with the aim of obtaining natural resources and fossil fuels.

We did realize that a lot more efforts are being placed in the fight against oil drilling in New Zealand whereas, nothing is being done about it in Kenya. Organizations such as: Greenpeace International; The Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation (ICMBio); The Environmental Agency of the Brazilian Government; The Palmares Cultural Foundation - just to mention but a few - have all stood with the indigenous groups affected by this process in New Zealand, and taken drastic steps towards combating the drilling.

Back at home, the voices of the Turkana people (who are the indigenous group affected greatly by the drilling of oil in their land) remain unheard and un-amplified by groups and individuals who have the ability to get them some attention. The government of Kenya together with the drilling companies seem to be making moves to shut them up by providing semipermanent options to the indigenous group, rather than proving a long term solution. This neglect by the government is also evident in New Zealand whereby laws have been passed by parliament to prevent protests concerning the deep sea drilling in their nation.

From the New Zealand case study, possible solutions to the problem were outlined. They consisted of: increasing environmental requirements and inspections; forcing changes in mining behavior; and adjusting the prices of minerals according to the socio-environmental cost of their exploration. As for the Kenyan case study, solutions were directed to the government by advising it to invest in renewable energy sources and simply leave fossil fuels underground - where they belong. The two parties (i.e. Kenya and New Zealand) did agree that more solutions could have been suggested by the Kenyan side. Propositions such as; seeking the aid of influential NGOs, organizations and individuals to act against the menace that is the drilling of oil, and to be the much needed voices of the Turkana people could have been included.

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