(Tanzania) Industry 'threat' to rare African flamingo - BBC

Source: BBC News

Last Updated: Wednesday, 11 July 2007, 21:30 GMT 22:30 UK

Industry 'threat' to rare African flamingo
By Adam Mynott
BBC East Africa correspondent

Plans to build a soda ash plant alongside a lake in
Tanzania threaten the future of one of the world's most
beautiful birds, a rare species of flamingo, according
to wildlife experts.

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB)
has condemned the proposals for the industrial plant
next to Lake Natron, where 75% of the world's population
of lesser flamingos gather to breed in the summer.

It is one of the most iconic and beautiful sights in Africa:
the brilliant pink fringe around Lake Natron formed by half
a million lesser flamingos strutting in the lake's shallow
waters.

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It is the salt in Lake Natron that has attracted the
attention of industrialists who want to build a soda ash
plant next to the lake.

-snip-

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6292434.stm

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Source: The Guardian

Factory may destroy natural wonder

· Rift Valley plan threatens to wipe out flamingos
· 'Bonkers' soda-ash plant will ruin fragile ecosystem

Xan Rice in Nairobi
Thursday July 12, 2007
The Guardian

One of nature's most spectacular sights - millions of pink flamingos
migrating between the Rift Valley's alkaline lakes - is in danger of
disappearing forever, according to conservationists.

Tata Chemicals, part of the giant Tata industrial group in India,
plans to construct a soda-ash plant on Lake Natron in northern
Tanzania, the most important breeding spot for the endangered
lesser flamingo. Each summer 500,000 of the birds, three-quarters
of the world's breeding population, fly to the lake to nest.

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds yesterday described
Tata's plans as "bonkers" and warned that they could ruin the
breeding site. It says that India's largest conglomerate, which has
entered into a joint venture with Tanzania's government, plans to
install heavy machinery on the shoreline to extract half a million
tonnes of soda ash, or sodium carbonate, each year. Tata also
plans to build a coal-fired power station and house 1,200
construction workers on site.

Chris Magin, the RSPB's officer for Africa, said that the
development could leave the lesser flamingo - classified as a
"near-threatened species" on the World Conservation Union red
list - facing extinction.

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Read more: http://environment.guardian.co.uk/conservation/story/0,,2124251,00.html