Say No to Gas! in Mozambique campaign

The campaign approaches the struggle from several angles. Locally, we work closely with community members on the ground, with whom we have mutually trusting relationships, in areas which are being affected by the industry, through regular visits and constant communication, to gather information and to strengthen resistance with our research.

We constantly build up on a research and knowledge base, where partners can share research with other activists, journalists, academics, media and the public.

We focus on understanding the linkages between the many gas projects, the external industries they have created and the destructive effects on communities to show the broader impacts of gas extraction in Mozambique.

We are working in a difficult and complicated context. There is only one functioning gas project in northern Mozambique, but the impacts are already visible. Communities are being forcefully removed, land is being grabbed and livelihoods and the environment are being destroyed. Most impacts are quietly relegated to the corner of economic externalities and conveniently ignored. But even when impacts on communities and local ecology is considered, for example in environmental impact assessments (EIAs), these are notorious for creating division and also being optimistic in favour of the companies, as even ‘consultations’ with communities take place in the presence of untrusted government officials, dividing each project into its own different bubble, without considering the linkages and especially ignoring the cumulative impacts.

Already fishing communities can no longer fish in their areas and are being moved many kilometres from the coast; farming communities are separated from their agricultural land, compensated with tiny portions of land, which is often inarable; and carbon emissions will be massive, which the companies have already admitted to. This is disastrous, as it will increase the risk of natural disasters in a country already affected by climate change, with the most recent consequence being Cyclone Idai which has left 700 people dead, thousands missing and affected almost 2 million people in Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi.

A poor developing country such as Mozambique is lacking in infrastructure. So before drilling takes place, companies are already beginning the construction of roads, ports and jetties, themselves creating the need for cement factories, stone quarries, rock blasting sites, and migrant workers. Attacks on communities in the region, which many believe are directly linked to the gas industry, have opened the door for foreign private security and arms companies.

The Say No to Gas! Campaign is crucial in the fight for local and international climate and energy justice.