Helen Byron managers the RSPB’s work to protect some of the most important wildlife sites in the world. We do this by supporting the work and campaigns of our BirdLife International partners. Here Helen gives us an insight into the progress made to safeguard the Serengeti – and wildlife sites don’t come much more significant than the Serengeti!
Things I never thought I would do....
...stand up immediately after the Tanzanian Minister for Natural Resources and Tourism and make a statement to a United Nations Convention meeting. But this is exactly what I found myself doing last Wednesday at the 35th session of the World Heritage Committee meeting in Paris, when the Serengeti highway case was discussed.
Helen gives it large on screen and steps up for the Serengeti
As you will know from previous posts, we have been supporting our BirdLife Partner in Tanzania, Wildlife Conservation Society of Tanzania (WCST), in their campaign to reroute the highway from the proposed alignment through nearly 55km of the Serengeti National Park to a less damaging alternative one.
The case was on the agenda of the World Heritage meeting following a joint World Heritage Centre-IUCN monitoring mission to Serengeti last December. Having visited the site, driven the route of the proposed road and spoken to a number of stakeholders including WCST, the mission report concluded that the proposed road alignment should be rejected and that if a decision to build this road is taken, the Serengeti National park should be included on the List of World Heritage in Danger.
After the World Heritage Centre and IUCN introduced the agenda item to the meeting, Mr Ezekiel Maige, the Tanzania Minister for Natural Resources and Tourism took the floor and explained that in response to stakeholder concerns a longer stretch of the proposed road – both through and around the Serengeti national park would be constructed with gravel, not a metalled surface.
Amidst a lot of confusion amongst delegates as to what this brand new information would mean in practice I then got to take the floor. Until the last minute, it wasn’t clear that I would get the opportunity to speak, as NGO statements to the meeting are rare. I steeled myself, said the new information sounded promising but would obviously need investigation by WHC and IUCN.
I then presented our joint BirdLife International and Frankfurt Zoological Society statement recognising Tanzania’s desire to develop including its transport infrastructure, but calling on them to abandon the road across the Serengeti which could have disastrous consequences for the wildebeest migration and severe impacts on tourism. They should undertake a strategic environmental assessment to examine a range of alternatives including the potential southern road around the park.
The case was then adjourned for WHC and IUCN to consider the new information and I went to speak to the Tanzanian delegation to see if they had a written version of the new information.
They said NO.
But under pressure, the following day they did make a written statement to the meeting that an approximately 122 km stretch of the road through and near the Park would be gravel not a metalled surface, the road will be controlled by the National Park Authority and will be for the same level of traffic as currently ie mostly tourists, not commercial traffic. Also that they will seriously consider the southern alternative road (which avoids the park).
This sounds like a step in the right direction, and we are cautiously optimistic. However until a strategic environmental assessment is undertaken and a new alternative route is chosen for the commercial highway which completely avoids the Serengeti National park and ensures that the proposed gravel northern route will only be for tourist traffic, we cannot be sure that the Serengeti will be safe and we will continue to follow the case.
Let’s hope this is a first step in a positive direction that leads to a solution benefiting both people and wildlife.
If you’ve stepped up and added your voice to the call to save the Serengeti – thank you. We’ll keep you posted as the story unfolds...
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Is it just me? There seems to be a lot going on at the moment, and it’s a mixed bag for the natural world. A lot of the big stories this week directly relate to some of the most special places on Earth – so it’s worth a quick review.
First up – and quite new news – the proposed road development through the Serengeti has been dropped. We’ve been supporting our friends in the Wildlife Society of Tanzania and many others across the world in calling for this outcome – so if you added your name and stepped up, thank you. I’ll return to this story soon as there is a lot behind the headlines.
Nearer to home, we welcomed the news that the latest proposals to build a huge concrete wall (aka barrage) across the Mersey has been shelved (hopefully to gather dust). In breathing a sigh of relief that the immediate threat has been lifted – we aren’t in the mood to celebrate (much) because the focus on barrages is preventing real progress on new tidal power technology that is designed to minimise environmental impact.
Back to Africa – and Kenya’s stunning (but-much-less-well-known-than-the-Serengeti) Tana River Delta remains under siege from the biofuels industry with the announcement of 10,000 ha trial jatropha planting scheme (jatropha is a plant that can be processed to produce fuel). You can read more here (and listen to a podcast from Talking Naturally) – or, here, if you would like to add your name to the local campaign to challenge the legality of the decision.
On the domestic policy front, the Department of Communities and Local Government has published it’s definition of the presumption in favour of sustainable development. Sorry – wake up! Dull sounding, but crucially important to how development proposals in England will be treated in the future.
And it’s not great.
You can read what Martin Harper, our Director of Conservation, has to say here. The short version is that some comforting introductory words can’t disguise the pressure of the drive for economic growth and the consequent threat to the natural world that will bring. If you fancy delving a bit deeper – do visit the Planning Blog, here (but do come back), you can also watch Greg Clark, minister for planning policy, talking at the RTPI conference last week. What do you think?
Out of a clear blue sky came the rumour (which still persists) that the funding structure for agri-environment payments under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) was going to be scrapped. We’ve mobilised around the issue and if you are one of more than 6,400 people who have e-mailed EU President Barroso, thank you, if not – here’s the link. Any hope of hitting the target of stopping the loss of nature by 2020 (signed up to by the EU and the UK) will be undermined if this rumour turns into reality.
To finish on a positive note – we want every child to get outdoors and experience nature, and today the kids won’t be having all the fund as at over 50 sites across the county we’ve invited the local MP to come too. We’re doing this with the Field Studies Council and the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust – and you can read more about it here.
In all that, there’s been a lot of stepping up for nature – you can keep up with our new campaign here.
We can now add this week’s decision, by Peel Energy, to shelve their plans for an impoundment barrage across the Mersey to last year’s scrapping of plans to build the Cardiff –Weston barrage across the Severn.
Coincidence or a developing trend?
We have welcomed both decisions – but we’re not kidding ourselves that there has been a light-bulb moment that means the massive potential environmental impacts have driven a change of direction (and heart). Far from it – the shelving of the Mersey barrage is the result of the sums not adding up – and if the financial equation changes then there is a distinct possibility the sequel, Mersey Barrage III, will be in production.
Yes, III.
We’ve been here before, 20 years ago, when the proposal was dropped in the face of spiralling costs and a damning assessment of it’s environmental impact (it was a case that dominated four years of my life). The pattern is becoming familiar - twice now on both the Mersey and the Severn. Time to learn the lesson and move on – surely.
I’m relieved – but I’m not celebrating (well, not much anyway). I’m relieved because the natural environment of the Mersey (and let’s not overlook that it is a world-class coastal wetland) is under less threat now than a few days ago. But real celebrations will have to wait until this love affair with these out-dated, old fashioned impoundment barrages is over.
If one were ever built, the natural world would be hit hard. But there is a real casualty now, and that’s the lost opportunity to put the UK at the heart of developing innovative technologies that put the environment at the heart of the design to generate electricity from tidal power.
But for now the wildlife on the Mersey is still under threat. Indeed, as long as developers continue seriously to consider big barrage technology, many of our estuaries – particularly those in the North West - remain at risk from serious environmental damage.
If we want a truly sustainable renewable energy infrastructure in the UK, we need Government and developers to reject completely this outdated and harmful technology and invest instead in emerging tidal energy solutions that minimise environmental damage.
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For a tired dunlin completing its migration, the choices are limited. It must find somewhere to feed and renew its strength. The shoreline coming into the bird's view will be familiar, a home that will provide food and a place to survive the winter.The stretch of muddy shore that beckons is a link in the chain of life that sustains not just one dunlin but the thousands that are moving along the migration flyway.Take away that mud, choose to develop that place for our use – then the consequences for our dunlin are stark: move on or starve. Moving on is fraught with risk – the risk of not finding anywhere before the last of its energy is sapped, the risk of having to fight for feeding space with other birds, the risk of losing out, the risk of having no other choice to make.
Our choices affect, directly, the chances of life for the wildlife that depends on our special places. We believe that the right choice is to put the natural world at the heart of decisions we take about how we use the precious land in our crowded islands.
Sometimes that brings us into conflict with proposals that will wreck parts of our natural environment. But very often it is about working with planners and developers, communities and consultants to find the best way forward – to choose development that is genuinely sustainable.A big thanks to you!We have a proud record of success (you can read about some of them on this blog) – none of which would be possible without the support and encouragement of people like you. I talk regularly to our Conservation Officers and frontline staff around the UK. Their jobs can often be a mixture of grinding through piles of paperwork and tough talking – knowing that they have your direct support is hugely important.
Thank you for stepping up and supporting the Nature Fighting Fund appeal. This year has seen us engaging with an unprecedented number of big cases and your support is making a real difference.A matter of life or deathThe thought of the damage that can be done to our best wildlife sites by badly thought-out development is always hard for the people who care for those places. Seeing precious places lost is a personal sadness but for our wildlife it is simply a matter of life or death, the starkest of choices.In parallel with fighting for wildlife in individual cases we are getting stuck into the proposals for the planning system in England – changes that will directly affect the future for nature’s special places and how local communities can choose to protect and enhance the natural world.You can keep up with all of this, here, on the Saving Special Places blog.
You can add your name to support campaigning in Kenya to challenge decisions to press ahead with planting for biofuels. This puts pressure on land for growing food crops, water resources, the lives of local people and a rich natural environment.
Want to find out more? You can listen to our Helen Byron – who visited the delta recently – talking to Charlie Moores on a Talking Naturally podcast. Helen managers our in put to international casework and campaigns to save special places. The Tana River Delta is high on her list of priorities.
And here’s some more to read.