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Article

20 Mar 2018

Author:
Kevin Mwanza, Reuters

Maasai-Maori exchange offers Kenya's indigenous community insights on how to engage & benefit from geothermal companies operating in their communal land

"When the Maasai met the Maori: Kenya seeks to end geothermal land conflicts"

As the semi-nomadic Maasai of Kenya's Great Rift Valley prepare to lose more land to a geothermal plant, they hope to win a better deal this time, after meeting the Maori in New Zealand. Protests by the Maasai...halted construction in 2016 of Kenya's Olkaria V plant, about 100 km (62 miles) northwest of the capital Nairobi, on ancestral land sacred to community rituals. Although building resumed after negotiations, both sides are keen to improve relations so that the hot water under the soil can help to lift the Maasai community...out of poverty. "(The Maori) have conflicts, but they've found better ways to solve them," said Mwangi Sururu, who travelled to down south in November to see how the indigenous New Zealanders kept their culture intact by partnering with energy firms. "They were given a share in the power plants and the areas that were already being used for power production were leased directly from them," said the Maasai elder, who was one of more than 1,000 people evicted from their Rift Valley land in 2014.

Kenya...aims by 2025 to triple its output of clean electricity made from generating stations that harness natural, underground heat.This will require more geothermal plants. But further encroachment on land claimed by the Maasai could cause conflicts if the process is not managed carefully, said John Maina of the renewable energy department at Kenya's energy ministry. "Problems arise when the investor doesn't do thorough community engagement and participation," Maina told a public forum...

The Maasai and the Maori consider geothermal springs as critical to their way of life, offering heat for cooking, a place to treat ailments and a venue for traditional rituals. The Maori said they faced similar threats to their lands but found ways to work with the plant operators. "We are an indigenous community over here, and we've had some projects just like the Maasai," said Desterney Mana Newton, chairman of New Zealand's Ngati Tahu Tribal Lands Trust, which administers blocks of Maori land used for geothermal projects.