A fisherman sits on a mooring on Kenya’s resort island of Lamu on Tuesday. Photo: AFP
Kenya on Friday broke ground in a pristine mangrove forest near a UNESCO-listed island to build a massive port, a refinery and rail network billed as the region’s future economic nerve center.
Nairobi is touting the US$24.5 billion project as its ticket to becoming a middle-income nation within two decades, but conservationists say that the project will destroy the east African nation’s greatest treasure.
The project — with its 32 berths connected to the region by thousands of kilometers of new rail tracks and a refinery receiving South Sudanese oil through a new pipeline — will sit in Lamu district on Kenya’s Indian Ocean coast.
While Kenya describes the project as the “most ambitious ever undertaken by any independent African country,” Lamu residents fear the sheer scope of the complex will bury them alive.
Monster earth movers and dredgers will rumble into the remote fishing village, flattening mangroves, plowing coral reefs and destroying fish breeding grounds, say residents, who also fear losing land because of a lack of ownership titles.
“There will be an over-exploitation of resources without proper mitigation measures in place,” said Atwaa Salim Mohammed of the Lamu Marine Conservation Trust. “We’ll be losing a certain percentage of our mangroves. We’ll be losing a certain percentage of our coral reefs, and we’ll be losing our pristine beaches to some extent, and also the fishing and breeding grounds for turtles.”
There are also fears it will impact Lamu town — whose ancient Swahili architecture is a UN-listed World Heritage site popular with celebrities — although the port will be about 10km away.
The government has already invited tenders to build three berths in the first phase of the project.
Funding is expected to come from regional governments as well as international financiers, with China believed to have major stake.
Kenya is already the region’s economic powerhouse and has set up a body known as Vision 2030 to turn it into an “African Tiger.”
“It’s now time to put Africa on the map, put Kenya on the map, put Lamu on the map,” Vision 2030 director Mugo Kibati said.
He said that the growth generated by Kenya’s congested century-old transport route — from the coastal city of Mombasa through Nairobi to the Ugandan border — had peaked.
The port will be linked to a standard gauge railway and a highway running through Kenya’s underdeveloped north to South Sudan and Addis Ababa.
The corridor is to be dotted with resort cities and airports.
The project will have to overcome the threat of bandits in northern Kenya, al-Qaeda-allied Somali rebels operating dangerously close to Lamu on the other side of the border and pirates preying on the region’s maritime traffic.
South Sudan, locked in a furious row with the rump state of Sudan, in January signed an agreement with Kenya to build a new pipeline, with Juba aiming to free itself from reliance on Khartoum for oil exports.
South Sudan has shut down oil production forming 98 percent of its revenue in protest at Khartoum’s confiscation of its crude.
“It’s a very good thing for South Sudan that we can have our goods coming in and out of Kenya, and that’s our exit for the pipeline,” South Sudanese Information Minister Barnaba Marial Benjamin said. “It’s a real gift from Kenya.”
To placate angry residents, the Kenyan government has begun issuing land title deeds to locals, who despite calling Lamu their home for years, have never had official land ownership.
By Tom Odula / AFP, Lamu, Kenya
