– Environment vs Economy-
Kenya launched in 2013 the construction of a Chinese-funded $13.8 billion (10 billion euro) flagship railway project to dramatically increase trade and boost the east African country’s position as a regional economic powerhouse.
The key transport link is eventually hoped to extend onwards to landlocked Uganda, and then connect with proposed lines to Rwanda and South Sudan, a key goods route extending far into the continent.
It replaces a colonial-era 19th century railway built under British rule, a line dubbed the “Lunatic Express” due to the logistical challenges – including in Tsavo, where man-eating lions hunted the struggling railway workers.
Chugging once-a-day trains on that slow moving line occasionally hit animals, but posed nothing like the threat the busy, fast new link may pose.
Elephants crossing are being built underneath the railway – raised bridges allowing animals to move beneath – but concerns remains especially as to the impact of the planned road.
Similar raised bridges will be used when the railway line cuts through the 117 square kilometre (45 square mile) Nairobi national park, where buffalo, lion and rhino roam just seven kilometres (four miles) from the bustling high-rise city centre.
Construction of the railway in that park – disturbing animals and with reported gaps made in fencing amid the building – is reportedly one reason for a spate of lion escapes into the capital suburbs in recent weeks.
The new railway “is perhaps the most important transport project Kenya has seen since the building of the first railway in the early 20th century,” said Iain Douglas-Hamilton, founder of Save the Elephants.
“If research such as this can help influence the way development is carried out, then we are truly on the path to securing a future for wildlife into perpetuity.”
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