The UK Times publishes story of Oil and Gas Exploration Threat to the Arabuko Sokoke Forest https://twitter/jeromestarkey #SaveArabukoSokoke Jerome Starkey Arabuko Sokoke Published at 12:01AM, November 18 2014 Plans to hack through one of the largest coastal forests in Africa so that oil and gas prospectors can lay hundreds of explosive charges would be an “environmental catastrophe” that could spell the end of Kenya’s forest elephants and drive at least nine endangered species to extinction, conservationists have warned. The American company Camac Energy has hired a Chinese partner to carry out seismic testing inside the Arabuko Sokoke forest on Kenya’s Indian Ocean coast, despite claims from conservationists that it will cause irreparable damage to its fragile ecosystem. The reserve is home to more than 100 forest elephants, which are being driven to extinction by poachers, and at least three endangered mammals: the Aders’ duiker, or antelope, the bushy-tailed mongoose and the golden-rumped elephant shrew, which are found almost exclusively inside the Arabuko Sokoke reserve. Covering almost 420 square kilometres, it is the largest coastal forest in east Africa and is home to six endangered birds, including the Sokoke scops Owl and the Sokoke pipit, and more than 250 species of butterflies, including four found only in the forest. It was listed by Unesco as a “biodiversity hotspot”, one of only 25 in the world. “It is one of the most important forests for biodiversity conservation in Africa,” said Francis Kagema, the coastal director of Nature Kenya. “It is more valuable than oil. We have birds and critically endangered mammals that are not found anywhere else. If we accelerate their extinction, how can we calculate the loss?” The east African seaboard used to be swathed in thick, impenetrable forest from Mozambique to Somalia, but most of it has been converted into farmland. “Biodiversity is God-given and we don’t know when we will need it,” Mr Kagema added. “Maybe the treatment for ebola is in the forest. We never know, so let’s keep it [the forest] there.” Camac said that its Chinese partner, BGP, would use explosive charges to send shockwaves up to 4 kilometres below the earth’s surface. Under the current proposals they will drill holes for the explosives, up to 4 metres deep, roughly every 60 metres along two transects that cut through the reserve. Augustin Nkuba, Camac’s managing director in Kenya, insisted that the £3 million survey would be done “with the highest respect to the people and the environment” and would only involve between two and three days of work in the forest. “We are not talking about drilling. We are talking about following a line through the forest,” he said. “The animals will not be in danger. There will be no vehicles inside the forest. It will be people on foot. People with machetes will cut the way, but we are not allowed to cut any tree more than 10cm in diameter, even if it is inside or outside the forest.” However, when The Times visited a village on the forest’s northern boundary last week, a bulldozer felled a tree trunk at least 50cm across. Mr Nkuba said it was a stump. “You cannot stop this project,” shouted Anderson Nyundo, a former local councillor who was wearing BGP’s blue and yellow uniform, as the bulldozer exposed the damp, rust-coloured soil. “This is the start of everything, even Uhuru knows about it,” he added, referring to President Kenyatta of Kenya. “A big project like this is serving all of the people.” However, Johnson Kafula, a forest guide, said that local people would suffer if the exploration goes ahead because “there is a human ecosystem that depends on the forest”. “We will lose rain. We will lose jobs. Pollution will get worse because there will be no carbon filtration. There will be more erosion, hilly areas will be washed down to the sea. Animals will be displaced and that will lead to human-animal conflict,” he said. A study by the Max-Planck Institute in Bremen, Germany, has found that elephants, which communicate by sending subsonic vibrations through the ground, are particularly susceptible to “seismic operations”. Outside the forest they would be more susceptible to poachers, Mr Kafula said, or being killed by farmers trying to protect their crops. As well as the guides, who rely on tourism, there are beekeepers, butterfly farmers, mushroom farmers, firewood collectors and traders in medicinal herbs who all rely on the forest, he said. “If the forest goes, all this will go,” said Abbas Sharif Athman, a smallholder on the forest boundary who nurtures butterfly pupae for sale to collectors in Europe and America. “Oil and gas is a curse,” he said, unmoved by the promise of mineral riches. tthetimes.co.uk/tto/environment/wildlife/article4270571.ece
Posted on: Tue, 18 Nov 2014 06:47:18 +0000
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