Pollution and traffic jams are rising in Kenya, pushed by a near doubling in imported vehicles since 2000. The Kenya Roads Board reports there were half a million cars in Kenya by the end of the 1990s. There are now a million, with more than half of them are in Nairobi. A UNEP report looking at air pollution in the capital city reported high levels of cadmium and lead being put out by vehicles, with pollution highest around motorways, factories and dumping sites. The report said lead and cadmium was finding its way into the food chain, through roadside plantations, and creating water pollution. It was these pollutants getting into Lake Nakuru that caused the death of 60,000 flamingos in the 1990s. The surge in vehicle numbers has also led to rising numbers of car accidents. Kenya was ranked as having the 5th highest accident rate out of 29 countries studied in 1986 by the UK Transport Research Laboratory. During the 1990s, accidents grew faster than the number of vehicles, pushing the country’s rate of accidents per thousand licensed vehicles even higher. Road quality would appear to have been instrumental in the low level of road safety, with potholes and poor surfaces leading cars to swerve, or to drivers losing control of vehicles. Of 63,265 km of intercity roads in Kenya, only 8,933 km are paved, according to the CIA World Fact Book. Kenya’s government has proposed in its Vision 2030 strategic plan to introduce transit trains, trams and subways across the country, as well as a comprehensive programme of road paving. Meanwhile the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) together with UNEP are now phasing out leaded fuels in Kenya.
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Environmentalists say the two root causes of environmental crisis are exploding population growth and wasteful consumption of irreplaceable resources. According to the CIA World Fact Book, Kenya’s estimated population by July 2009 will be 39m, compared with 10.5m in 1969 and 33.5m as recently as 2005. Growth has slowed, from an average 3.4 per cent a year in the 79s and 80s to now 2.7 per cent, as education and health clinics have promoted the use of contraception and family planning. This has seen family numbers halve in recent decades, from an average of six siblings, to more like three. However, at the same time, Kenya’s population has been boosted by immigration due to wars in neighbouring countries, falling death rates and longer life expectancy, which now averages 57.86 years. As a result, and with Kenya now supporting four times the population it did on independence, water tables have been dropping, trees and forestry have been thinning - cut down to create both space and as firewood - and pollution is surging. |
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Kenya has 56 national parks and reserves, covering some 7 per cent of the country. They underpin tourism as one of the country’s top income earners, thanks to Kenya’s rich endowment of Africa’s “Big Five” (Lion, Elephant, Rhino, Leopard and Buffalo). According to Kenyan biologist Iregi Mwenja, one-quarter of the country’s wild animals live in parks and reserves. The rest are spread across the country’s diverse wild habitats, which include open savannah, deep forests, soda and fresh water lakes, alpine meadows, coral reefs, caves, beaches, and river deltas. In the parks, huge efforts have gone into boosting animal numbers. For instance, the population of elephants in the expansive Tsavo/Mkomazi conservation area now stands at 11,696, up from 10,397 three years ago. However, even as the country strives to conserve its environment as a showcase, tourism itself can take a toll. Off road driving in parks and reserves erodes vegetation and destroys habitat. The absence of waste recycling in some lodges is another challenge, as is water consumption, with tourism lodges having been cited as lowering river levels and causing pollution. Typical is a case raised by the Maasai Environmental Resource Coalition, where a leading lodge in Amboseli National Park is discharging its sewerage into a waste water pit less than 20 meters from a water source used by Maasai communities and wildlife. Melding the needs of the tourism industry, local communities and the environment is an ongoing balancing of interests in Kenya. |
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Humans are killing off species of plants and animals at an ever faster rate. Extinction is natural, say scientists. A typical species lives for 10 million years before dying out, with some 99.9 per cent of all species that have ever existed on the planet now extinct. But humans have brought the life of many species to a far more abrupt end through pollution, changes in land use and habitat and the over-exploitation of resources. In Kenya, many plant and animal species now face extinction, with a single new dam enough to spell the end for several species at a time. Typical is the Turkwel River Dam, which has reduced flooding and thinned out the woods on the river’s floodplain. Several rare plant species, such as Acacia tortilis and Prosopis chilensis (Mol.) St, are now threatened with extinction as a result. With miracle cures having been found in rare plant species in South America, scientists warn that with every plant that disappears behind a single man-made project, an irreplaceable source of future hope might also be dying. More common still are species that are not yet facing a complete wipe-out, but which are now disappearing from some regions of the country. For instance, experts warn that there may soon be no more lions in southern Kenya. According to National Geographic, within a month, nine lions were found speared to death, in and around Kenya's Amboseli National Park. In the past, when the lion population was high, according to The Maasai Association, the community encouraged solo lion hunting. However, over the last ten years, with the lion population declining, the community has adopted a new rule that discourages solo lion hunting. The elders now encourage warriors to hunt a lion in groups of ten. Group hunting, known in Maasai as "olamayio", gives the lion population a chance to grow. Kenya Wildlife Services is also enforcing the law in an effort to protect the lion. |
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