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Kenya: UK Blamed Over Mumias Sugar's Tana Delta Row
A UK wildlife organisation has blamed the British government for the decision to allow a massive sugarcane plantation in the Tana River delta.
The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds' view is based on the demand for biofuels in the UK and the European Union which is encouraging poor countries in Africa to give up valuable arable land and wildlife habitats in order to grow the in-demand fuels.
Kenya's Mumias Sugar Company is planning to plant 20,000 hectares of sugarcane in the Tana delta to produce biofuel and sugar.
The $313.5 million project, including an ethanol refinery and food-processing plant, promises to create thousands of jobs in an area dominated by traditional cattle herding, small-scale rice and subsistence farming.
But a report from Bird International pointed out that while income from sugarcane would be around $2.45 million over 20 years, income from fish-farming tourism and other lost livelihoods would be around $59 million.
Environmental campaigners claim that the scheme would destroy the wetlands - home to 345 species of birds, including the threatened Basra reed warbler, the Tana river cisticola, and 22 species of waterbirds such as slender-billed gulls and Caspian terns, which are so numerous there they are considered "internationally important" to the global populations.
Globally the boom in this and other projects is causing growing concern about environmental damage and the part played by biofuels in pushing up food prices.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called for a comprehensive review of the policy on biofuels as the crisis in world food prices threatens to trigger global instability.
Last week, former UK labour environment minister Elliot Morley urged the government to delay the new biofuel requirement until "comprehensive certification and assessment schemes are put in place," echoing criticism by the Environment Department's chief scientific adviser, Prof Robert Watson.
The chairman of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Dr Rajendra Pachauri, has also spoken out against the risk of biofuels, especially of growing corn for ethanol in the US.
In the Tana delta, the two main worries are that monoculture planting would replace a large area of rich and diverse habitat, including unusual but unprotected Borassus palm savannah, and that irrigation for the new plants would use up to one third of the available water, claims made by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, which has protested directly to the Kenyan government.
RSPB African specialist Paul Buckley warned of a "disaster" if the biofuel project fails and the environment suffers at the same time.
"Africa boasts spectacular and invaluable wildlife assets with unquantified benefits for her peoples.
"Biofuel developments have already caused the widespread destruction of many unique habitats without necessarily cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
"Loss of the Tana Delta for another unproven biofuel and to a scheme that could well fail, would be a disaster both to hopes of tackling climate change and for those so dependent on the area for their livelihoods," Buckley added.
"The merits of growing biofuels are the source of increasingly acrimonious debate in East Africa where vast tracts of open land in Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia and Tanzania are attracting the attention of local and international agricultural firms hoping to cash in on the demand for clean energy sources such as ethanol," said RSPB.
"Until now, Kenya's support for global agreements to protect wildlife has been excellent but this development could severely damage Kenya's reputation for caring for the environment," said the report.