COP26 summit: How 'green colonialism' is plundering North Africa

Renewable energy projects, just like traditional ones, have fuelled dispossession, exploitation and socioeconomic exclusion across the region

By Hamza Hamouchene. He is the North Africa Programme Coordinator at the Transnational Institute (TNI). Excerpts:

"Morocco set the goal of increasing its share of renewable energy to more than 50 percent by 2030. But the Ouarzazate solar power station, launched in 2016, has failed to benefit the impoverished surrounding communities; the Amazigh, whose lands were used without their consent to install the 3,000-hectare facility, were especially affected.

The project also requires extensive use of water in order for the solar panels to be cooled and cleaned, putting a strain on the semi-arid region of Ouarzazate by diverting water from drinking and agriculture.

'We are oppressed'

Another phase of Morocco’s solar power plan, the Noor Midelt project, involves developing a facility in central Morocco. For this project as well, the state confiscated around 4,000 hectares of land - which had previously been managed by ethnic agrarian communities - through national laws and regulations that allow expropriation in order to serve the public interest. 

Reminiscent of an ongoing colonial environmental narrative that labels land desired for expropriation as marginal and underutilised, and therefore available for green energy projects, the World Bank asserted in 2018: “The sandy and arid terrain allow only for small scrubs to grow, and the land is not suitable for agricultural development due to lack of water.” The report goes on to state that “the land acquisition for the project will have no impacts on the livelihood of local communities”. 

The tribespeople of Sidi Ayad, who have used this land to graze their animals for centuries, beg to differ, with one young shepherd explaining: “Our profession is pastoralism, and now this project has occupied our land where we graze our sheep. They do not employ us in the project, but they employ foreigners. The land in which we live has been occupied."

The people of Sidi Ayad have been voicing their discontent for years, with one protest leading in 2019 to the arrest and imprisonment of Said Oba Maimoun, a well-known local activist and union member."