The relentless rush to ‘grow’ biofuels in countries like Kenya is causing serious problems for local people and threatens to devastate the natural environment. I’ve attempted to explain the ins and outs of the policy arguments in these posts before, here, for example.
My colleague, Helen Byron, is currently in Kenya and she has sent me some of her initial impressions of life in the Tana River Delta.
Gamba village – people displaced.
We visited villagers who were forcibly evicted from Gamba village around a year ago and have since been moved on again from where they initially settled. There are over 1000 people - wardei pastoralists grazing their cows and goats. They are now living in a temporary village called Darga - with no health provision or access to school for the kids and with little water and what there is appears to be polluted by farm chemicals.
They were evicted to make way for an unsuccessful food programme. I was saddened and moved to see these people who have been uprooted from the lands they have grazed for a century. At the time, they wrote to the office of the Kenyan Prime Minister complaining about the eviction. They received a holding reply saying there would be an investigation but then never any substantive response.
Nature Kenya (NK) is hoping to plan a workshop in the village in the near future to tell the people more about how they can work together.
And what of the food programme that triggered the eviction of Gamba village? We saw dying maize crops – the failed output of the emergency food project established by the Tana and Athi River Development Authority (TARDA) at a cost of billions of Kenyan schillings. Although some rice cultivation seems to be more successful, the project has been so poorly designed that three maize crops have failed due to poor water control, we were told that attempts to irrigate the crops end up drowning it.
Stuck in the mud
Our journey to the village of Ozi on the coastal edge of the delta was challenging. The community can only be reached by boat during the four months of the rainy season – and our vehicle got stuck in the mud!
NK has been working with the community to establish a site support group which is now in the process of establishing a formal Community Conserved Area (CCA). Effectively they've zoned their land into three zones - beach, CCA and human use area. NK also working with the community on activities to create income – such as honey production (pictured). We are currently working with NK to try and fundraise to take the implementation of the CCA further.
Our welcome was very warm and it was a pleasure to meet the friendly team of men and women that have formed the committee of the CCA.
They are very worried about indirect impacts from the biofuels proposals. In particular that the neighbouring communities who are giving their land up for biofuel production will now come and grab Ozi's resources – this is what the impact of indirect land-use change looks like at the sharp end, stripped of the comfort of looking at it as ‘an issue’ and seeing how it affects people’s lives and futures.
For me this is more proof, if any were needed, that a strategic plan is vital for the whole delta. Sarah Sanders (my colleague at the RSPB) has just helped NK get some money from USFWS for an initial workshop on this plan. So when we get to Nairobi tomorrow taking this forward will be one of the top items on the agenda.
It’s important that the quiet voices of communities under threat are heard – at a recent meeting to discuss a 60,000ha jatropha planting proposal, the developer (Bedford Biofuels) bussed people into give vocal support to the project. The Atmosphere was tense as NK spoke out against the project on environmental grounds – we are all awaiting news on whether the project is issued with its environmental permit.
Coming to such a fantastic place as the Tana River Delta it’s impossible to ignore the wildlife – we visited Hippo Lake and as well as eight hippos (with a calf) the bird life was impressive. Pelicans, African darters drying their wings, hadada ibis with their wild calls, stately yellow-billed storks as well as pied kingfishers, Egyptian geese and spur-winged lapwings all added to the scene.
Our next visit is to the Dakatcha woodlands - so more later
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Hi,
I am delighted that RSPB has decided to prioritise this; it is hugely challenging and difficult work with so many interlinked issues; poverty not the least of them; people on the conservation frontline are hugely brave here and fully deserve all the support we give.
I do feel that there has to be more of a debate with regard to carbon profile issues with regard to produce flown in from Kenya. How can we condemn farm produce flown in from kenya ie beans or flowers when overall their carbon profile is so low; but also if people visit it is so important to get out of the hotel and direct to places such as these; and that is brave.
In my last trip to Kenya I felt very much the need for a reputed network of small cheap, safe hotels that travellers wishing to venture to such places might be able to rely on.
Peter Plover