The Water Hole

Category: Community, Marine, Wetlands, Wildlife | Date: Feb 18 2008 | By: admin

On 12 February 2008, our wetlands programme officers, Peter Odhiambo and Rashida Suleiman, accompanied by our Deputy Director and Head of Conservation, Hadley Becha, travelled down to the Tana Delta to meet with the local people there. They went to discuss with the local people their various comments on the Environmental Impact Assessment Report (EIA) conducted in preparation for the Tana Integrated Sugar Project (TISP). The law requires that once a project proponent has submitted their EIA, the National Environmental Management Agency (NEMA) must invite comments from the public. This is merely a formality for NEMA but in the case of Tana Delta, the stakes are high.

The TISP is a joint project of the Tana & Athi Rivers Development Authority and is to be implemented in an area covering 20,000 ha (50,000 acres) at the heart of the Tana Delta and spanning the Tana River and Lamu Districts inland of Kenya’s northern coastline. According to the proponents of the project, the TISP intends to clear the natural ecosystem that not only supports several unique and threatened species of wildlife but also supports a huge population of pastoralists, whose culture has evolved around the seasonal ebb and flow of the Tana Delta wetlands, to establish fast growing sugarcane plantations. They also plan to establish sugar factories and bio-fuel plants.

The 130,000 ha Delta is Kenya’s largest freshwater wetlands. The Delta ecosystem consists an expansive patchwork of Savannah, forests, beaches, lakes, mangrove swamps and the Tana River itself. It is internationally recognised as an Important Bird Area (IBA) and is being lined up for listing in Ramsar International Convention on Wetlands as a Ramsar Site of International Importance. Among unique and rare species included the Tana Red Colubus, the Tana Crested Mangabey (primates), birds such as the Southern Banded Snake-eagle, the Malindi Pipit, and the migratory Basra Reed Warbler. The Tana River Cisticola was recently seen. It is extremely local and on the verge of extinction. At least 13 different species of birds breed in the Delta gathering in numbers exceeding five thousand individuals in these seasons.

Many conservation organisations presented their comments on the EIA which is generally seen to be a shoddy job. EAWLS, Kenya Wetlands Forum, Nature Kenya are among Kenyan NGOs that presented their comments. The local Community Based Organisations (CBOs), also came together and prepared their comments which they presented in solidarity with each other. International organisations such as UK’s Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and Birdlife International have also joined in.

Generally, all these comments are more in the line of protesting the implementation of the TISP. Majority trash the EIA for its unorthodox process and gross omissions. The capability of the consultants who conducted the EIA is also questioned with all who drafted the comments (most of whom are NEMA-certified EIA experts) scoffing at the inadequacies demonstrated by the obviously unqualified consultants.

The protesting comments have four main points:

1. the socio-economic and livelihood options for the local people - who’ve have co-existed within the ecosystem for centuries - was not fully evaluated

2. the ecological impact of the project on the 20,000 ha and the entire delta (particularly downstream) as assessed in the EIA report is laughably shallow.

3. mitigation measures offered for the destruction of the environment and livelihoods are ambiguous and largely inadequate

4. comparison of the various economic and livelihood options that could be practised on this land (as opposed to sugar plantation) is unclear, inadequate, disruptive and inviable.

After presenting their comments, Kenyan NGOs, CBOs and international partners have proposed the formation of a ‘consultative group’ such as that which was used to lobby the government of Tanzania against Tata Chemical’s soda project on Lake Natron. The group is in its nascent stage and I will be updating you on their progress.

You can help by donating to EAWLS as we require funds to launch a campaign to stop this potentially devastating proposal.

Technorati : Kenya, Tana Delta, agriculture. wildlife, biofuel, sugar, wetlands

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