New scramble for Africa hits Kenyan wildlife oasis

RPSB press release, 24th June 2009

Credit: Michel Laplace-Toulouse (www.africanlatitude.com)

One of the most important wetlands in Africa is under unprecedented threat as corporations and foreign agencies scramble to exploit its riches for export crops and biofuels.  Tens of thousands of people would lose their livelihoods, and globally endangered birds and primates and crucial wintering sites for migratory birds would be lost if a rush of schemes in Kenya’s Tana River Delta goes ahead.  The site is even more threatened after a stop order on development was thrown out on a technicality by a Kenyan court this week, despite clear evidence that the scheme does not provide greater economic benefits than the alternatives.  Conservationists and local agencies are working to promote an alternative development path for the Delta, incorporating eco-tourism and the enhancement of indigenous livelihood strategies.

The Tana River Delta has a history of poor environmental management and planning and promised major development schemes failing, most recently a rice scheme in the 1990s which left a legacy of environmental damage. In 2008 Kenyan conservationists went to court and secured a stay order against the Mumias Sugar Company who wanted to plant over 20,000ha of sugar cane in the wetland, displacing thousands of pastoralist people who depend on this area for dry season grazing. Since then Mat International Sugar Ltd is targeting to invest in sugarcane projects in Tana River and Ijara Districts. Both sugarcane projects aim to produce large amounts of ethanol for export to the European market.  Now biofuel companies want to convert 160,000 hectares of the land immediately surrounding the delta into Jatropha curcas plantations. Qatar has asked Kenya to lease it 40,000 hectares of land to grow crops in exchange for support for a major new port in nearby Lamu

Paul Matiku, Director of Nature Kenya, says: ‘The Tana River Delta is the largest of several critical wildlife areas threatened by development in Kenya.  Kenya needs development, but not a scramble for our resources which destroys our wildlife, displaces pastoral tribes who have depended on the area for centuries, dries our rivers and removes more sustainable longer term economic options such as fishing and ecotourism.  We are working with communities in the Delta who share our opposition to these plans and who have positive proposals for enhancing their livelihoods through community owned iniatives’.

Paul Buckley of the RSPB, which has helped support Nature Kenya’s defence of the Delta, adds: ‘It is tragic to witness the risk of the riches of the Delta being squandered.  The Delta suffered poor planning for decades and the river is already dry after recent droughts, even without these major proposed new irrigation projects.  We hope that the world will help Kenya to develop the Delta in a way which harnesses its unique global assets, protects its wildlife and helps its people’

Paul Matiku adds ‘We want to make the Tana Delta better known so that more people are aware of the risks to this little known but incredible wetland.  These developments have not asked the views of the local people who are a diverse and talented community.  When asked they express opposition to these proposals and request local officials and the outside world to instead help them improve their own lives and better market those things that they already produce.’

An economic study has already shown that a master plan which integrated better and more sustainable management of existing activities with a conservation-focused future development could generate more income and better livelihoods than these large and ill thought out developments.