Mozambique has not prepared itself for the implications of megaprojects – environmental activist

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Mozambique has not prepared itself for the implications of megaprojects – environmental activist

7:51 CAT | 12 May 2021

in file CoM

Environmental activist Alda Salomão considers that Mozambique has not properly organised itself for mega natural gas projects, which has contributed to the “revolt” environment exploited by violent extremism.

“Why did the Government not organize, previously, in order to identify – with great rigour and great caution – the implications that this [natural gas] project would bring, above all, the social implications, and to better understand the reality of the area of implantation of the project?” Alda Salomão, founder and legal adviser of the organisation Centro Terra Viva (CTV), a Mozambican civil society organisation that works in the environmental area, asked in an interview with Lusa.

Alda Salomão is one of the best known faces defending the rights of communities in the district of Palma, Cabo Delgado province, northern Mozambique, which hosts large natural gas projects, the largest of which has been suspended indefinitely following an armed attack on the town of Palma by rebels on 24 March.

For the environmental activist, before the start of natural gas projects, the Mozambican state should have invested in the technical and professional training of young people in Cabo Delgado, because the high level of unemployment in the province may be being taken advantage of to recruit combatants to the armed groups operating in the region.

The young population should have received “technical skills such as bricklayers, carpenters and electricians which do not require a high level of education”, says Salomão, a PhD in Human Geography and Spatial Planning at the University of Utrecht, in the Netherlands.

While vocational courses were being held for the young people of Cabo Delgado, training would be offered for higher qualification in gas and oil, also for Mozambicans, so that natural gas projects would find a country with staff already in the field, she continued.

“In the end we started to hear about specialised courses, already integrated in universities, for the oil and gas area, but that ship had already set sail…. ,” she added.

Salomão said that many young people in the province of Cabo Delgado live with “revolt and resentment”, because hopes of being prioritised in recruitment for jobs in the natural gas industry have been undermined.

“The Palma project attracted the attention of young people from all districts of Cabo Delgado, which fuelled expectations that they would be prioritised in job opportunities created by the project,” she said.

Salomão also warned of a “feeling of xenophobia” in communities close to the gas projects in relation to both foreigners and Mozambicans from other provinces working in those enterprises.

Source: Lusa