THE ongoing debate between the government and conservation organisations over the proposed construction of soda ash plant at Lake Natron is just part of a global debate as to whether development and environmental conservation can go together.
Whereas the government has continued to stick to its guns that it will proceed with the plans to erect the plant because of its benefits to the country, environmentalists, both local and international, oppose the idea on ground that it’s dangerous to the environment.
While winding-up the last parliamentary sessions in Dodoma mid this year, the former Prime Minister, Edward Lowasa, insisted that the government was determined to move on with the plan because even the neighbouring country of Kenya has a similar plant on the other side of the same lake.
“…but, when Tanzania starts discussing the construction of a similar plant in collaboration with Tata, we are told that we’re destroying the environment,” he said in response to the arguments that the project was going to impact to the eco-system around the lake negatively.
Tata Chemicals is the company behind the project and it’s the majority shareholder of the Magadi Soda processing plant on the Kenyan side.
It’s obvious that the government’s stand could be on economic reasons because soda ash is used to produce glass, cosmetics, detergent, paper pulp and other industrial goods of value making the project a good source of revenues to the government through taxes.
Lake Natron , in the Great East African Rift Valley, is known as a soda lake with high concentration of sodium carbonate which is the source of soda ash.
On the other hand, the environmentalists have reiterated that the proposed construction of the soda ash plant is likely to cause much damage to the eco-system of the area whose impact could also be felt globally.
For instance, the Birdlife Africa Partnership (BAP) says that the Lake , which is a very important breeding ground for a certain kind of birds i.e. Lesser Flamingo, a bird already listed in the red list of threatened species by the International Conservation Union (IUCN), is going to be negatively affected by the project.
“ Lake Natron was designated by Birdlife International as an important bird area and a wetland of international importance under the Ramsar Convention (an international treaty on the protection of wetlands),” BAP says in a recent statement made available to the media.
It adds that the area accounts for 75 percent of the world’s Lesser Flamingoes and that it’s the only site the region where the species have been breeding for the past 45 years.
“During breeding flamingoes are sensitive to disturbance hence the proposed development might lead to breeding failure at the site and thereby fast track the species’ extinction,” the statement reads in part.
BAP says that issues of concern over the construction of the soda ash processing plant are many that need to be highlighted before the project is given a go ahead.
The plant, which will initially have a capacity of producing 500,000 tons per year and later on expand to 1 million, is expected to use over 106,000 litres of fresh water per hour, the abstraction of which would be from the already dry area.
The infrastructure that would accompany the plant includes an 11.5 megawatt coal fired thermal power plant, a tarmac road, a railway, a complex network of pipes to transport the brine and accommodation of over 1,200 workers posing a great risk to the area’s eco-system.
“An influx of people and heavy machinery, infrastructure, increased water and air pollution would lead to general environmental degradation and permanent loss of the natural conditions of the land,” BAP points out.
Now which is which? Should the government move on with its plans for the project just for the sake of development at the expense of the environment?
Many nations in the world have found themselves in this dilemma and many a time development endeavours have taken precedence over environmental conservation. But is such kind of development sustainable?
It’s important to note that there is a direct relationship between environment and development and that both aim at one major goal- improve human well-being.
On the one hand, the environment provides natural resources for development process whereas on the other hand, the development process modifies the natural resources and environmental quality to meet human needs.
However, the type of development adopted can cause problems that destroy the environment that sustains it and hence lowers the quality of life which it endeavours to enhance.
For a long time, economic development was viewed as having only one purpose i.e. eradicate poverty and underdevelopment without paying attention to the consequences on the environment.
However, this approach, which was mainly used by the now industrialised countries during their infancy, has resulted in two major sets of problems.
Firstly, the exhaustion of natural resources because during the process of development, renewable resources were consumed faster than the rate at which they were regenerated and non-renewable resources were used faster before substitutes were found.
Secondly, there was large-scale environmental pollution because the pollutants resulting from the process of development were being randomly released at a fast rate into the environment than the Earth’s ability to convert them into a less harmful state.
This state of affairs necessitated joint global efforts for addressing the issue and it was through the Stockholm ’s Human Environment and the Rio de Janeiro ’s Earth summits in early 1970s and 1990s respectively that the idea of sustainable development was born.
Sustainable development can simply be described as a kind of development that caters for the need of the present generation without compromising those of the future generation.
It stands for wise utilization of natural resources by making sure that renewable resources are utilized at a pace and manner that would give room for regeneration and on the other hand, use non-renewable resources in a way that would enable them to serve for a longer period of time.
Since then countries of the world have agreed to make studies (Environmental Impact Assessment or EIA in short) over whichever kind of development project that they come up with so as to check their likely effects to the environment and the respective communities before they are implemented.
EIA is a process of predicting and evaluating the effects of an action or a series of actions on the environment, then using the conclusions as a tool in planning and decision-making.
This evaluation is done before each development project is implemented and once the impact is known in advance, corrective measures can be incorporated into the project, or an alternative project can be proposed.
For most projects, particularly those involving large public investments in areas such as infrastructure and common natural resources, EIA becomes a must and it is always linked to the cost-benefit analysis-the weighing of benefits against the costs or effects.
It is important to note that EIA is aimed at ensuring that there is a balance between development activities and environment.
This has brought about the need for development management whose aim is to sustain the benefits to the present and the future generations and this is only through the wise utilization of natural resources.
The challenge has always been on how to balance between development and environmental sustainability and the situation facing the Tanzanian government at the moment is just one of such cases.
Environmental activists hold that no thorough and objective EIA has been conducted over the proposed project at Lake Natron to clearly reveal the negative effects that the project could cause to the environment and see whether it’s appropriate to allow it.
They also argue that the EIA process itself that the government claims to have conducted was not representative enough.
On the other hand, the environmentalists have reiterated that the proposed construction of the soda ash plant is likely to cause much damage to the eco-system of the area whose impact could also be felt globally.
For instance, the Birdlife Africa Partnership (BAP) says that the Lake , which is a very important breeding ground for a certain kind of birds i.e. Lesser Flamingo, a bird already listed in the red list of threatened species by the International Conservation Union (IUCN), is going to be negatively affected by the project.
“ Lake Natron was designated by Birdlife International as an important bird area and a wetland of international importance under the Ramsar Convention (an international treaty on the protection of wetlands),” BAP says in a recent statement made available to the media.
It adds that the area accounts for 75 percent of the world’s Lesser Flamingoes and that it’s the only site the region where the species have been breeding for the past 45 years.
“During breeding flamingoes are sensitive to disturbance hence the proposed development might lead to breeding failure at the site and thereby fast track the species’ extinction,” the statement reads in part.
BAP says that issues of concern over the construction of the soda ash processing plant are many that need to be highlighted before the project is given a go ahead.
The plant, which will initially have a capacity of producing 500,000 tons per year and later on expand to 1 million, is expected to use over 106,000 litres of fresh water per hour, the abstraction of which would be from the already dry area.
The infrastructure that would accompany the plant includes an 11.5 megawatt coal fired thermal power plant, a tarmac road, a railway, a complex network of pipes to transport the brine and accommodation of over 1,200 workers posing a great risk to the area’s eco-system.
“An influx of people and heavy machinery, infrastructure, increased water and air pollution would lead to general environmental degradation and permanent loss of the natural conditions of the land,” BAP points out.
Now which is which? Should the government move on with its plans for the project just for the sake of development at the expense of the environment?
Many nations in the world have found themselves in this dilemma and many a time development endeavours have taken precedence over environmental conservation. But is such kind of development sustainable?
It’s important to note that there is a direct relationship between environment and development and that both aim at one major goal- improve human well-being.
On the one hand, the environment provides natural resources for development process whereas on the other hand, the development process modifies the natural resources and environmental quality to meet human needs.
However, the type of development adopted can cause problems that destroy the environment that sustains it and hence lowers the quality of life which it endeavours to enhance.
For a long time, economic development was viewed as having only one purpose i.e. eradicate poverty and underdevelopment without paying attention to the consequences on the environment.
However, this approach, which was mainly used by the now industrialised countries during their infancy, has resulted in two major sets of problems.
Firstly, the exhaustion of natural resources because during the process of development, renewable resources were consumed faster than the rate at which they were regenerated and non-renewable resources were used faster before substitutes were found.
Secondly, there was large-scale environmental pollution because the pollutants resulting from the process of development were being randomly released at a fast rate into the environment than the Earth’s ability to convert them into a less harmful state.
This state of affairs necessitated joint global efforts for addressing the issue and it was through the Stockholm ’s Human Environment and the Rio de Janeiro ’s Earth summits in early 1970s and 1990s respectively that the idea of sustainable development was born.
Sustainable development can simply be described as a kind of development that caters for the need of the present generation without compromising those of the future generation.
It stands for wise utilization of natural resources by making sure that renewable resources are utilized at a pace and manner that would give room for regeneration and on the other hand, use non-renewable resources in a way that would enable them to serve for a longer period of time.
Since then countries of the world have agreed to make studies (Environmental Impact Assessment or EIA in short) over whichever kind of development project that they come up with so as to check their likely effects to the environment and the respective communities before they are implemented.
EIA is a process of predicting and evaluating the effects of an action or a series of actions on the environment, then using the conclusions as a tool in planning and decision-making.
This evaluation is done before each development project is implemented and once the impact is known in advance, corrective measures can be incorporated into the project, or an alternative project can be proposed.
For most projects, particularly those involving large public investments in areas such as infrastructure and common natural resources, EIA becomes a must and it is always linked to the cost-benefit analysis-the weighing of benefits against the costs or effects.
It is important to note that EIA is aimed at ensuring that there is a balance between development activities and environment.
This has brought about the need for development management whose aim is to sustain the benefits to the present and the future generations and this is only through the wise utilization of natural resources.
The challenge has always been on how to balance between development and environmental sustainability and the situation facing the Tanzanian government at the moment is just one of such cases.
Environmental activists hold that no thorough and objective EIA has been conducted over the proposed project at Lake Natron to clearly reveal the negative effects that the project could cause to the environment and see whether it’s appropriate to allow it.
They also argue that the EIA process itself that the government claims to have conducted was not representative enough.
“The project proponents have not consulted enough with all the interested and affected parties-institutions, communities and individuals,” BAP points out in the statement in relation to the EIA on the project whose report has already been submitted to the National Environmental Management Council (NEMC) for approval.
No one knows why the Tanzanian government, which boasts of its ‘determination’ to environmental protection, does not want to take all these arguments into account despite the fact that some of them hold so much water.
It’s is just last month that the Press Secretary to the Prime Minister’s Office, Said Nguba, confirmed that the government’s position had not changed.
He also said that the PM’s office was not aware of any changes to the Environmental Impact Assessment despite the suggestions brought forward by the conservationists and other pressure groups.
If the government and Tata Chemicals, which claims to be a leading company in environmental protection in India, are sure that the project is both good to the economy and to the environment then why don’t they want to include all these views into the EIA?
No body knows why but it’s important to note that Tanzania has not yet reached a point of craving for development at whatever cost. Kenya could have committed a mistake in allowing such a plant on its soil but this is not an excuse.
Two wrongs don’t make it right.
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