From renewable energy mega-projects promoted as part of the “green transition” to the export of phosphate rock, fish, and agricultural products to the European Union, Morocco’s occupation of Western Sahara depends heavily on the extraction and exploitation of natural resources from occupied land - in direct violation of the Saharawi people’s right to self-determination.

Occupied Western Sahara holds some of the world’s richest phosphate reserves, abundant fishing waters, and enormous renewable energy potential. Yet the Saharawi people, the people of Western Sahara, are excluded from the wealth of their own land. While the occupying power Morocco, alongside international corporations and European governments, profits from the occupation, Saharawis are forced into exile in refugee camps in the Algerian desert or subjected to brutal repression and daily human rights violations under Moroccan occupation.

This is also a climate justice issue. While Morocco exploits Western Sahara’s resources and polishes its international image as a frontrunner of the green transition, positioning itself as a future supplier of “green” energy to Europe, Saharawis in the refugee camps near Tindouf need to survive in some of the world’s harshest living conditions. They are among the populations most affected by climate change, while having minimal resources to strengthen their resilience and adapt to its escalating impacts.

In this talk, Western Sahara Resource Watch Germany (WSRW) exposes how neocolonial resource plunder, corporate complicity, and greenwashing are sustaining one of the world’s most overlooked occupations in Africa’s last colony - and what you can do about it.