Kenya: Oldest National Park Confronts Industry And Urban Sprawl

Inter Press Service (Johannesburg)

December 20, 2006
Posted to the web December 20, 2006

Joyce Mulama
Nairobi

For people who arrive at the international airport in Nairobi, Kenya's fabled wildlife can be glimpsed almost immediately, in the Nairobi National Park which borders the airport. Driving out of this facility en route to the city, there's a chance of sighting black rhino, zebras and giraffe: just some of the many species that inhabit the park.

The reserve is Kenya's oldest, and located within the boundaries of the capital. However, its location is also the source of what some see as a grave threat to it: the proposed construction of a dam.

Earlier this month, a proposal to build a dam in Nairobi National Park was rejected by the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), managers of the reserve. This came after the agency studied the findings of an environmental impact assessment of the project, and decided that the dam -- under discussion for several years -- would have negative and irreversible effects on the park.

But this doesn't mean the issue has been permanently resolved, as further investigations into whether a dam could be viable are underway.

Proponents of the dam argue that it is central to addressing water needs in the suburbs of Mavoko, Kitengela and Athi River, where the number of residents and industries is growing at a rate of knots.

Athi River is one of Kenya's Export Processing Zones (EPZs): areas that have been in operation since 1990 in a bid to increase foreign currency earnings for the country, where some 56 percent of people live below the poverty line. The zones house companies that manufacture a wide variety of goods for export, principally textiles.

The parastatal Export Processing Zone Authority (EPZA), which proposed the dam alongside the Mavoko Municipal Council, says the Athi River zone requires 10,000 cubic metres of water a day, way above the current supply of around 3,000 cubic metres. And, "The situation will worsen if we do not find a permanent, alternative source," said EPZA Operations Manager John Akara. (The EPZA and Mavoko Municipal Council also hired consultants from the United Kingdom to produce the environmental impact assessment that was considered by the KWS.)

The dam would yield 36,500 cubic metres of water daily, enough to meet the demands of the 100 EPZ industries in Athi River, as well as some 300,000 residents in this region, and in Mavoko and Kitengela.

Currently, the three suburbs rely on surplus water from the Nairobi Water and Sewerage Company, the same firm that supplies the rest of the capital. The City Council of Nairobi maintains that the suburbs are not in its jurisdiction, and therefore not its responsibility concerning water provision.

"I have lived here for five years now and have no running water," Munyao Joyce, a resident of Kitengela, told IPS. "All this time I have been buying water from people in the area who have dug boreholes. Water has become an expensive affair; the dam will give me rest."

It's a view the KWS does not exactly share.

"We do appreciate the need to provide water to the industries and residents, but that should not be done at the expense of our unique and priceless wildlife. This will set a dangerous precedent for other fragile conservation areas across the country," Paul Udoto, KWS corporate communications manager, said in an interview with IPS.

While the dam will cover just 3.5 square kilometers of the park's surface area of 117 square kilometers, it risks introducing significant change to the reserve.

Njogu Kahare of the Greenbelt Movement, an environmental protection group, says the dam is "too huge a project" for the park's ecosystems to tolerate, and that efforts to provide water to areas that would be serviced by the dam have already left a trail of ruin behind them.

"For example, in the Athi river catchment, environmental destruction is what has made major rivers like Athi seasonal and inadequate. What reasons does anyone have to jeopardise the environment further?" he asks.

Akara has a counter-argument at the ready. "Obviously a new development of any type and nature affects the environment in one way or another. Any construction will always affect flora and fauna," he told IPS. "We are at the stage where we are doing a detailed analysis of the environment and proposing mitigations."

But environmentalists maintain that proponents of the dam should be investigating other ways of addressing their water needs, such as sinking more boreholes and harvesting rainwater.

And, while the 60-year-old park may be critical to the economic wellbeing of Athi River, it has financial significance of its own. The reserve currently attracts more than 100,000 tourists annually, collecting over 700,000 dollars in the process. Tourism is Kenya's second largest source of foreign income after agriculture.

All in all, concludes Udoto, "it seems sacrilegious for anybody to think of desecrating the jewel in the crown of wildlife conservation efforts".

(* This story is part of a series of features on sustainable development by IPS -- Inter Press Service -- and IFEJ, the International Federation of Environmental Journalists.)

This is precisely the reason I am studying conservation biology. People here either clap their hands or throw them up in defense when I tell them what I'm studying - the ones cheering are those who know that we have a desperate need to preserve what's left of the American wilderness. Those who defend themselves are the ones who like to call us "tree-huggers" or just plain crazy, the contracters and developers whose argument is "don't people matter more than trees and animals."
Actually, they do matter more. I think so anyways. Do people honestly think I don't care that Munyao Joyce has lived in Kitengela for five years and he has to buy his water off somebody because he doesn't have any? I do indeed. I've been to Kitengela. I don't know how anyone scrapes together a living there - add to that the necessity to buy water and it's even more unbelievable that people in Kitengela survive. Here's the thing: there's got to be a better way than building a dam and destroying Nairobi National Park, which is already an extremely fragile ecosystem. Would I want Munyao to die of thirst or dysentary to save a lion. No. Do I think there must be a better way than building a dam? Absolutely. That's just the type of thing I'm trying to figure out. You know, so I can save the world.