Bogonko Bosire, Yahoo News 23 Jun 08;
Outraged conservationists Monday protested Kenyan plans to grow biofuel crops on a coastal wetland, warning that they will ruin the environment home to 350 species, including endangered ones.
Britain's Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) and Nature Kenya said allowing the planting of sugarcane on more than 20,000 hectares (50,000 acres, 80 square miles) of the Tana River Delta will damage the fragile ecosystem.
Handing over of the delta to state-owned Mumias Sugar Company for sugarcane plantation endangers more than 350 bird species, lions, hippos, nesting turtles and Tana red colobus, one of 25 primates facing extinction worldwide, they said.
The groups commissioned a study in May that concluded there would be "irreversible loss of ecosystem services" if the project goes ahead to establish an estate sugarcane plantation, outgrower system, a sugar factory and 34 megawatt power plant as well as an ethanol production plant.
"We feared this project would turn much of the Delta into an ecological desert and this report shows its impact on local people, on wildlife and on the Kenyan economy would be quite horrific," said Nature Kenya chief Paul Matiku.
"The huge disparity between the scheme's value to Kenya in the future and the worth of what we have now means the government should dismiss these plans immediately."
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 which 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.
A Kenya environmentalist agreed, telling AFP: "The move will ruin the environment and given that big companies target profit, then we expect the worst in coming years."
The decison should be reversed and "the most important parts of the Delta made a national protected area so that future development proposals take account of the value of wildlife," the groups added.
Mumias Sugar Company estimates that sugarcane farming in the area, about 120 kilometres (75 miles) north of the Indian Ocean city of Mombasa, could raise 37 million dollars (24 million euros, 19 million pounds) over two decades.
But the activists' report indicated the value of farming, fisheries, tourism and other incomes derived from land and wildlife is already more than 59 million dollars, (39 million euros, 30 million pounds) over the same period.
"The huge disparity between the scheme's value to Kenya in the future and the worth of what we have now means the government should dismiss these plans immediately," Matiku explained.
The activists complained that the company ignored charges of water extraction levied under Kenyan law and the effect of the loss of grazing and crops, leading to overgrazing and eventual land damage.
The rising demand for biofuels, alongside inflation and steep oil prices, has been blamed for the global food crisis that has sparked riots in many poor nations, including Kenya.
Kenya biofuel plans threaten wetland: eco-groups
Daniel Wallis, Reuters 23 Jun 08;
NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenya should reverse a decision to grow biofuel crops which will threaten wild life on an important coastal wetland, two conservation groups warned on Monday.
More than 80 square miles of the Tana River Delta will be planted with sugarcane, threatening 350 species of birds, lions, elephants, rare sharks and reptiles, Britain's Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) said.
"This decision is a national disaster and will devastate the Delta," Paul Matiku of Nature Kenya said in the same statement.
"The Tana's ecology will be destroyed yet the economic gains will be pitiful. It will seriously damage our priceless national assets and will put the livelihoods of the people living in the Delta in jeopardy."
The RSPB said the proposal was approved by the Kenyan government's National Environment Management Authority, which it accused of ignoring an environmental assessment that showed irrigation in the area would cause severe drainage of the Delta.
Matiku said that would also leave hundreds of local farmers with nowhere to take their livestock for dry-season grazing.
Kenyan officials were not immediately available for comment.
The RSPB said a report it commissioned in May with Nature Kenya found that the biofuel plans overestimated profits, ignored water use fees and pollution from the sugarcane plant, and disregarded the loss of income from wildlife tourists.
It said developers estimated income from sugarcane farming at 1.25 million pounds ($2.5 million) over 20 years, but that their report showed revenues from fishing, farming, tourism and other lost livelihoods would be 30 million pounds over the same period.
"This decision is a very serious blow to Kenyan wildlife and to wildlife worldwide since many migrating species use the Tana Delta in internationally important numbers," said Paul Buckley, an Africa specialist with the RSPB.
The society said targets set by Western governments to increase their biofuel use as part of plans to fight climate change were actually driving the destruction of valuable environments.
European Union leaders have agreed renewable energy sources -- such as ethanol made from grains and sugar crops -- should make up 10 percent of road transport fuels in the bloc by 2020.
But the plan has been attacked by some scientists, politicians and conservationists who say growing biofuel production is curbing food supply at a time of soaring prices.
Critics say fuels derived from crops compete with produce from farmland and helped to push up food prices.
(Editing by Mariam Karouny)
