The Water Hole

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Apr 30 2008 | By: admin

In my previous post, I mentioned that the National Environmental Management Agency (NEMA) would hold three public hearings in the Tana Delta to present the outcome of the review of comments made by the public on the EIA report of the Tana Intergrated Sugar Project (TISP). Well, on yeaterday’s (29 March 2008) Daily Nation newspaper, they finally announced the dates for these public hearing meetings.

The meetings will be held between 6-8 May 2008 in three villages in both Tana River and Lamu Districts. On 6 May 2008, NEMA will hold the meeting at the Danisa Village Grounds in Tana River District; on 7 May (Wednessday) they will be at Golbanti Village Grounds also in Tana River; and finally they will be at Witu Shopping Centre (Lamu) on 8 May (Thursday). All meetings are scheduled to start at 10:00 am.

According to the notice, NEMA has invited members of the public and interested stakeholders to give their views on the proposed project (TISP). It is expected that these meetings will be stormy given the polarized state in which the communities are regarding the project at this time.

EAWLS calls on all who are near the area - or anyone who can get there by any means - to get there and make his/her voice heard. We do not want to lose the Delta. We hope to send down a team to add their voice on these dates. We therefore call on you to support our efforts by donating through this blog.

Let us save the Tana Delta.

Here is the notice

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Category: Kenya, Legislation, Policy, Tana Delta, Wetlands | Date: Apr 28 2008 | By: admin

In keeping with our battle to save the Tana Delta from impending anihillation by the Sugar Project we sought to get clarification on whether Mumias Sugar Company had been issued with an Environmantal Impact Assessment License (EIA License) which would then mean that they can proceed with the project. To do this our Executive Director, Ali Kaka, wrote to the Director General of the National Environmental Management Agency (DG-NEMA), Dr Muusya Mwinzi on 11 April 2008 seeking to hear directly from the DG-NEMA about the EIA.

Previously, there was inside information that the Technical Committee had recommended that the said license be granted. Our Director thus sought to get this - so to say - from the horses mouth.

NEMA has just responded (with a letter dated 23 April 2008) saying that the license has not been issued yet given that they have not held any of the mandatory public hearings for the contested EIA report. According to their letter, NEMA is currently organizing three public hearings in the Tana Delta, “the proceedings of which will provide further guidance to the Authority”. Their letter also tells us that the dates and venues of the hearings will be publicized at least one week prior to the meeting by a notice in a daily newspaper, and by at least two announcements in the local language of the community and the national language through radio with nationwide coverage. Kenya’s national Environmental Management and Conservation Act (EMCA) requires that the above hearings and announcements be done (vide Regulation 22 of the EIA/EA Regulations, 2003).

Read the letter here

EAWLS will definitely be represented in the public hearings when they are announced and will go down to the Delta before the dates of the meetings to mobilize the community to come out in large numbers and speak their mind. This mobilization is of course in the docket of the EAWLS Wetlands Programme.

The Wetlands Programme has been facing an uphill task of trying to convince the government and the public that wetlands are not wastelands that should be rehabilitated and converted for productive activities (such as large scale agriculture). Wetlands, we have been telling government, are among the most productive ecosystems that need to be preserved.

The programme is making progress even with their limited financial resources but with more support from you, we can can score greater victories for our wetlands. Our wetlands are not only important for us. They are also important for you. We therefore call upon you once again to support the work of this very important programme by making donations.

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Category: Birds, Sugar, Tana Delta, Wetlands, Wildlife | Date: Apr 10 2008 | By: admin

The Water Hole was yesterday morning informed that the Technical Assessment Committee (TAC) on the proposed Tana Delta Sugar Project’s EIA has finalized its work and handed its report to the NEMA’s Director General (DG), Dr Muusya Mwinzi. The DG is also reported to have said that he is looking at the TAC report and will make his decision in the next few days. The KWF – who informed The Water Hole about this development has however urged ALL people concerned to be vigilant since they are informed that the TAC’s recommendation may not very good.

It will be very sad for the Tana Delta should the DG decide to give a clean bill to the development in line with this recommendation (which, as I have said, is suspect). It is unimaginable how dangerous this move can be. How much alteration to the ecosystem it will cause. How much biodiversity will be lost.

Perhaps a glance at a small fraction of what might be lost due to changes in the ecological system can inform you of the magnitude of the problem.

During the past Easter weekend, our good friend (and member of the SWARA Editorial Committee), Fleur Ng’weno was part of a Kenya Museum Society outing to the Tana Delta. During this short period, Fleur was treated to a feast of biodiversity that is both unique and astonishing.

“We stayed in Kipini, where I could observe the birds roosting on the sandbanks on the south bank of River Tana.” wrote Fleur in an email to the Kenya BirdsNet email network. During a boat ride up the Tana River she got to Hippo Lake. This is a wide part of the river in which hundreds of hippos congregate. The Hippo Lake area is surrounded by seasonally flooded grasslands. During the visit, although the ground was mainly dry, the grasslands were teeming with huge flocks of birds.

During that single outing, Fleur and friends observed – on the sandbanks and mudflats at the river mouth – and estimated 400 Glossy Ibis, 400 Sooty Gulls, 2000 White-winged Terns and small numbers of terns (Gull-billed, Caspian, Lesser Crested, Roseate and Saunders’s)

Along the river banks and in the seasonally flooded grasslands they observed significant flocks of other birds including roughly 2000 Cattle Egrets, 100 Common Squacco Herons, 200 Yellow-billed Storks, 400 Spur-winged Plovers, 200 Collared Pratincoles and a group of 20 African Skimmers

They were also treated to gathering of scavengers at a carcass near Hippo Lake, consisting of about 2 Hooded Vultures, 6 African White-backed Vultures, 6 Rüppell’s Griffon Vultures and 2 Lappet-faced Vultures.

Carmine Bee-eaters were virtually everywhere.

“These brief observations confirm that the Tana River Delta is an extremely important area for large congregations of African and migratory waterbirds”, says Fleur in her e-mail

Fleur has offered to give me more comprehensive lists of birds found in the Delta which I hope to share with you in consequent blog posts.

As you can all see, we should not lose the Delta. Its too important.

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Category: Aberdares, IBAs, Lake Ol Bolossat, Wetlands, Wildlife | Date: Apr 03 2008 | By: admin

Last Friday I recieved a very encouraging email from my coleague Peter Odhiambo. It was in essence a forwarded email from within the ornithological department of the National Museums of Kenya. The email had in it the news that Lake Ol Bolossat - the only significant lake in Central Province of Kenya - had been accepted as the 61st Important Bird Area (IBA) for Kenya. This means that the lake will be recorgnised internationally as being a habitat for birds of global conservation concern.

This new status of the tiny wetland is yet to be published but it has been recieved well by those who care about conservation of biodiversity. The Water Hole is particularly elated given that we have continuously highlighted the plight of this unique wetland. Only recently, I highlighted the difficult time the lake was facing given the invasion of the Azolla weed. Not much has been done in this front but given the lake’s new status, we can expect that more attention will be paid to finding a lasting solution to the Azolla menace.

The IBA programme is run by Birdlife International and it aims to identify, monitor and protect a global network of IBAs for the conservation of the world’s birds and other biodiversity. “BirdLife Partners take responsibility for the IBA Programme nationally, with the BirdLife Secretariat taking the lead on international aspects and in some priority non-Partner countries.” (see IBAs). While in this site, you can follow the Africa link to learn more about Africa’s IBAs.

Lake Ol Bolossat’s ‘induction’ into the IBA list was the result of a National Liaison Committe on Kenya’s IBAs’ meeting held on 26 March 3008. During this meeting, a its case was presented to committee on the basis of the findings of an avifaunal research conducted in August 2007 led by NMK’s Assistant Research Scientist, Wanyoike Wamiti, and funded by the British Ornithologists’ Union (BOU). This survey had recorded a number of birds of conservation concern at the site.

Ol Bolossat becomes the 7th IBA in Central Province of Kenya. The other six IBAs are: Aberdare Mountains, Kianyaga Valleys, Kikuyu Escarpment Forest, Kinangop Grasslands, Mt Kenya and the Mukurweini Valleys.

The Water Hole will be watching closely - and keeping you informed about - what this recognition will do for this important wetland.

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