"Without our land and river, we will starve"

Uncovering Green Colonialism in EDF, Sumitomo and TotalEnergies Hydroelectric dam Project in Mozambique

Clara Alibert, Chloé Bailey
CFFD-Terre Solidaire,
Justiça Ambiental (JA!)
Report
2025

This report on the Mphanda Nkuwa hydroelectric dam project in Mozambique – a $6.4 billion megaproject led by the Mozambican government in partnership with EDF (40%), TotalEnergies (30%), and Sumitomo (30%) was published together with Justiça Ambiental.

Behind the promises of “green” energy, the reality on the ground is alarming:

• 1,400 families (8,120 people) could be forcibly displaced, and up to 350,000 people affected.
   
• More than 100 km² of land would be flooded – the equivalent of the size of Paris.
   
• Cultural and sacred sites risk being submerged.
   
• A climate of fear and repression has been instilled by local authorities, reviving the trauma of the colonial-era Cahora Bassa dam already on the Zambezi River.

Despite its magnitude, the project was launched without consulting legally recognized landholders – namely, the local communities, who will bear the heaviest costs.

As of now, this project exemplifies green colonialism: local, marginalized communities being excluded from decision-making and stripped of their rights in the name of development and the energy transition.

The energy transition is urgent. But it cannot reproduce extractivist logics that destroy territories and peoples.

We also recall today that as French companies, EDF and TotalEnergies are subject to the French Duty of Vigilance law. The French state, as a shareholder of EDF, bears direct responsibility.