Seychelles news update – Vigilance and surveillance of the Indian Ocean waters pays dividends

SEYCHELLES VIGILANCE PAYS DIVIDENDS

The archipelago’s undeterred drive to safeguard the island country’s extensive national waters of the Indian Ocean paid more dividends earlier in the week, when more Somali pirates were nabbed red handed, trying to hijack a Seychellois fishing vessel. Aerial surveillance and coordination with the international naval coalition led to the capture of 11 more pirates, who will be surrendered by a Spanish warship to Seychellois law enforcement personnel at the port of Victoria.

Somali ocean terrorists are beginning to fear encounters with the Seychellois coast guard, which has proved decisive and robust in their response towards them and who – once fired upon – in fact fire back and have in the past sunk pirate ‘motherships’ and rescued captives from the yoke of the terrorists.

Seychelles depends on fishing and tourism as the two main sources of income and both sectors will appreciate government’s robust handling of securing the national waters. The Minister for Home Affairs and chairman of the ‘high level committee on piracy’ Hon. Joel Morgan said in Victoria in regard to the latest capture of Somalis: ‘We will continue to deal with the pirates in the area surrounding our islands and we continue to send a strong message to these pirates that their acts of terrorism on our seas will not be tolerated’.

Adds this correspondent that using the term ‘acts of terrorism’ is spot on, as that is what the Somali pirates indeed are, ocean terrorists, posing a clear and present danger to lives and property, and hence they need to be dealt with harshly and decisively, on land and on sea, as and when and where they are spotted. On land to deny them their bases and on sea, just as soon as they leave Somali territorial waters, as terrorists worldwide deserve. Those still held in captivity by them, and those meanwhile released against huge ransom payments, will agree that any sentimental opinions on this issue are totally misplaced and only encourage the menace to continue. It is time to expand the rules of engagement for the naval coalition members and end this problem from hell once and for all.

Well done Seychelles once again.

Rwanda conservation update – Gishwati forest encroachers to be evicted

FOREST ENCROACHERS TO BE EVICTED AGAIN

A year after many illegal squatters were evicted from the Gishwati forest and resettled by the Rwanda government, have a number of them sneaked back into the protected area and resumed illegal logging and cultivations. The news broke yesterday prompting a reassurance by government that this trend would not be tolerated as re-forestation was an official government policy, carried out at substantial expense, and the forests were a source of water and an asset for forest tourism.

The Rwandan government last year launched a 25 million US Dollar project towards re-forestation, the protection of ‘water towers’ and the long term sustainable use of forests through tourism and limited, carefully considered resource exploitation. Said a regular source from Kigali overnight in response to a question posed: ‘Our government will take strict measures and if necessary prosecute the encroachers. We are spending a lot of money on conservation and re-forestation and a few individuals cannot think they are above the law. They will be evicted again, taken to their initial resettlement site and watched closely from now on to prevent any one of them going back into the forests. We have a duty to protect our water sources’.

The Rwandan government is arguably the most proactive in the East African region when it comes to the protection of the environment and maintaining biodiversity, all done with an eye on generating more jobs, investment and income from tourism.

Kenya conservation news – NEMA stops mangrove forest destruction

NEMA KENYA STEPS IN TO SAVE MANGROVE FOREST

Developers of a planned top end residential estate along the shores of the Kilifi creek north of Mombasa were told in no uncertain terms that there will be NO development approved if it involves – as presently planned – to clear an extensive swathe of mangrove forest.

Inspectors of NEMA Kenya, alerted to the developers’ plans to cut down mangroves, swooped in on to the project site and halted all work, before serving the developers with a formal stop notice. Beach conservation groups had joined hands with the local fisheries department staff and the beach management unit to petition NEMA for immediate action to prevent any damage being inflicted on the mangrove forest. Information received from Mombasa talks of up to 3 acres of mangroves the developers wanted to cut, which is in violation of laws and regulations and could have ended up the promoters of the project in court, where however fines and sentences are far too lenient to deter offenders. The same source also claimed that the removal of the mangroves and ‘insertion of sand’ would have added tremendous value to the up market estate project, where a ‘sandy beach would make all the difference to sell it at a premium and reap huge profits’. The same source also attributed the assistance from the fisheries department on their fear that their own access to the beach would be tampered with by the developers with a long legal struggle ahead and felt that a unified appeal at this stage would have greater chance of success than having to reclaim their rights at a later stage.

Well done here, bouquets to NEMA Kenya for their initiative and action – and maybe NEMA Uganda can learn a thing or two, as they more often than not stand idle by while the wanton destruction of wetlands in and around the city continues unabated.

Tanzania conservation breaking news – Kikwete stirs fresh controversies when demanding ‘soda ash plant must be built’

KIKWETE’S MOTIVES FOR SERENGETI HIGHWAY BECOMING ALL BUT CLEAR

President Kikwete was overnight reported to have demanded the fast tracking of a proposed soda ash extraction plant at Lake Natron, when visiting the Ministry of Industry and Trade. This confirms a long harboured and long suggested suspicion that the construction of the equally controversial highway through the Serengeti is primarily motivated and driven by industrial and mining considerations, and not as conveniently floated ‘in the interest of the people’, unless the financial interest of and financial considerations for a ‘few people’ can meet that standard.

Kikwete tried to lessen the blow when mentioning the plant should be constructed a few kilometres away from the lake to avoid disturbing the large flamingo populations, which use the shores of Lake Natron as the only viable breeding place across the entire East Africa. However, conservationists consulted overnight – the story broke yesterday (Friday) – to ascertain the impact of such plans and the viability of moving the plant machinery a few kilometres away all said in unison that as the deposits of soda ash are ‘in the lake’ the extraction has to take place there. The placement of any machinery, use of large lorries and presence of workers would inevitably drive the birds off their breeding grounds, and even the construction of pipelines and a pumping station to extract the soda ash would create major disturbances, in particular as the intake position needs to be constantly moved to ‘suck up’ the minerals from the shallow lake floor.

Said one specialist in flamingo behavioural patterns: ‘the birds are spread over the alkaline Rift Valley lakes in Kenya and Tanzania for much of the year, providing a big spectacle for tourists. They however do not breed there and return to Lake Natron for breeding and rearing their young ones before they can fly back to their feeding locations. The lake shores at Natron provide an ideal environment for the birds. They make nests using mud and the heat of the day assists the eggs to mature. Natron is the only known place where the East African flamingos go to breed and us ornithologists are not aware of any other place where the annual mass breeding takes place. When NEMC made their investigation some people from the developers went to the lake shores and pointed out there were no or few birds only, but they conveniently chose times when the flamingos were not there for breeding, which is only happening at intervals. Then they claimed we were trying to protect ‘empty mud flats’ but everyone with at least a bit of an interest knows that the birds return there regularly, lay eggs and when the young ones have hatched and matured fly off again. We cannot make that any clearer and my Tanzanian colleagues concur. It is not true that because I am Kenyan I have been ‘bought to deny Tanzania development’, my and my colleagues interest is to see we ensure the long term survival of the flamingos because they are a natural asset worth protecting and they by the way are also found in Tanzania, not just Kenya.’

Kikwete in his directive spoke of over 300 million tons of soda ash deposits, claiming the untapped riches must be exploited and citing the Magadi Soda Ash operation on the Kenyan side of the Rift Valley floor as an excuse to wreck the last breeding refuge of the East African flamingo population.

Calling opponents of the plans unpatriotic he laid down the gauntlet to the conservation fraternity and opened the doors for ruthless pursuit of anyone speaking out against such plans, which according to past practises in Tanzania may well include trumped up charges against individuals, sackings from government positions, hounding by sycophantic supporters and worse. He also accused critics to be ‘agents of someone’ adding further fuel to the now all but inevitable drive to crush any opposition to his plans, muzzle the media and denounce conservationists as ‘traitors to progress’.

Most notable will the refusal last year of the National Environmental Management Council, which had denied approvals for the project’s clearance over environmental concerns and lack of mitigative measures available to safeguard the breeding grounds of the Flamingos, be tossed aside, as the minister hastily promised to have the final preparations ready by the end of April, unless he wished to incur the wrath of ‘his boss’.

NEMC had proposed to use a pipeline – in itself also problem ridden with no clear mitigation assurance – to extract the soda ash and locate the plant some distance away in Loliondo, but this was rejected by the Indian based developers as too costly. Subsequently rumours emerged that a ‘deal’ was struck ahead of last year’s elections in Tanzania when the ruling party suddenly started to splash out money to ensure – some said buy – elections success, with in particular opposition camps immediately pointing to the funding coming from industrial groups around the world lined up for mining concessions to be granted to them in return.

The controversial Serengeti highway is clearly the main transportation link for those interests and as with the flamingo breeding grounds, so the migration of the great herds of wildebeest and zebras will have to make way for powerful industrial and financial interest groups in the good books of President Kikwete.

Expect more revelations in coming weeks and months as the pace to give mining right concessions to developers and break founding father Nyerere’s commitment to protect the priceless natural resources and national parks gathers more speed.