Rwanda Shines in Conservation Where Her EAC Partners Falter

The government in Kigali stands out from amongst the partners in the East African Community through a number of things, but for the purpose of this article particularly in their stand on conservation and environmental protection.

Some years ago, when the ‘kaveera pest’ swept across all of Eastern Africa, Rwanda took an unprecedented step to ban the production, importation, and use of plastic bags, and following a short and sharp campaign the prohibition stuck and is in fact being enhanced yet more through an amendment to existing law. Other countries in the region bowed to the pressure of well-connected industrialists, looked to justify their diddling and dithering and while marginally amending their own laws as to the micron strength of plastic bags, the curse is still with us and pollute our environment as do the darned plastic bottles which are littered almost everywhere, turn caps and shrink wrappers included.

But the focus of this article is on wildlife conservation, protection of crucial ecosystems, water towers, forests, rivers, and lakes where Rwanda truly excels, said to be the envy of others but at the same time bringing global recognition to the country with positive ‘fallout’ in other areas of the economy and trade. President Kagame, an enlightened leader by any standards, has taken good advice to heart and his directives about environmental and conservation measures to his cabinet have been translated into action.

Re-forestation is now ongoing in Rwanda on a nearly unprecedented scale, closing crucial gaps between once-connected forest patches and this goes hand in hand with publicity and public awareness, and education campaigns, but also evictions were necessary to stop encroachment and keep wildlife habitats intact. Better agricultural methods are being employed to increase food production, instead of carving out more and more land from protected areas for that purpose, and the use of affordable electricity is being promoted, notably through a soon to be built methane gas the power plant, tapping into the gas trapped deep underneath Lake Kivu so that the use of charcoal and the
indiscriminate felling of trees can be reversed.

The country’s tourism successes speak for themselves, as the accolades Rwanda receives abroad draw even more visitors into the country, making the tourism sector the number one foreign exchange earner and breaking record after record in an almost unreal trend. The establishment of the Nyungwe Forest National Park a few years ago widened Rwanda’s tourism attractions and the success of this park – including its unique treetop walk – has fueled rumors that another forest national park may be in the making to provide more choices of itineraries and fulfill the country’s tourism vision to attract quality tourists who are staying longer and spend more money, making the ‘industry’ succeed in the long run for generations to come. However, in comparison much more needs to be done across the national borders, in Uganda, Kenya, and particularly Tanzania, where ‘the corridor of destruction has brought the global wrath of conservation and ‘green’ groups upon the government in Dar es, Salaam.

Mining concessions for gold and other precious minerals are located just ‘beyond’ the Serengeti’s borders towards Lake Victoria and need to be connected to Arusha and the coast by a new highway, which however threatens to cut the Serengeti National Park into two parts and is crucially thought to have a massive and irreversible impact on the great herds of wildebeest and zebra, which presently draw hundreds of thousands of tourists to Tanzania year after year.

The highway is also due to connecting to the planned soda ash extraction plant at Lake Natron, where again concerns and objections of leading experts are being tossed aside – here the imminent danger is the destruction of the sole breeding grounds of the lesser flamingo, which while presently appearing across Eastern Africa in their millions could soon be reduced to a few patches, making the ‘pink shores’ of the Rift Valley alkaline lakes only a distant memory. At the Tanzanian coast, the Tanga Marine Park at Mwambani is under threat as a harbor extension is being planned there, at exactly the spot where ancient, almost prehistoric fish are found and where only a few years ago a marine national park was launched.

In Kenya, just to give one example, the Nairobi National Park, a true gem right next to the capital city, is under growing threat. The ancient migration routes across the Athi plains are already all but gone, fenced off for pastures, farms and residential estates, threatening the crucially important DNA exchange with migratory animals. It is however the pressure for yet more land, which is the greatest threat for NNP in coming years, as the present population of an estimated 3 million inhabitants is expected to triple, eventually completely encircling the park and arguably snuffing the life out of it as we know it, turning it into a large ‘safari park’ similar to those in Europe and North America but fundamentally changing its essence and fabric.

No one can be sure what future governments in Nairobi will do and if not eventually the rocketing real estate prices will lead to degazetting in small portions, accelerating until nothing is left. A nightmare scenario – undoubtedly for all the friends of the Nairobi National Park. In Uganda, it is Mt. Elgon National Park which has become a hotspot but even Queen Elizabeth National Park or some of the game reserves like Pian Upe are under growing threat.

Land grab at Mt. Elgon, incidentally a crucial national water tower, is almost normal and it is only the threat of yet more landslides – a growing rip over a stretch of about 40 kilometers around the slopes of the mountain has opened up progressively more under continuous rains and ongoing illegal logging – is making it possible for authorities to stem the tide of invasions into the park. Uganda Wildlife Authority’s staff consider a posting at Mt. Elgon a real hardship assignment and several of their colleagues were in the past attacked and even killed while defending the park’s integrity and its wildlife.

At Queen Elizabeth National Park it is the fishing villages, well embedded along the shores of Lake Edward and Lake George, which have attracted a lot more people from ‘outside’, although set aside initially to cater for the original ‘habitants’ and their descendants only and cattle invasions have caused running battles between UWA rangers and the invaders, who in the process also regularly poison predators, causing a substantial loss of the lion and hyena population in the park through the use of highly poisonous chemicals banned in many other
parts of the world.

Conservation is never easy, always full of the challenge to keep growing populations reconciled with having protected areas set aside near where they live and percolate benefits to those who live nearby, derived from tourism and conservation income. But when tourism has become a key sector of the respective national economies, has attracted megabucks in foreign investments, is responsible for hundreds of thousands of direct and a multiple of that for indirect jobs across the region, the very foundation of wildlife-based tourism, an intact environment needs to be looked after at almost any cost, unless our governments are ready to sacrifice the sector on the back of ‘progress and development’, when the sanction ‘development’ at the expense of intact nature for which tourists travel from around the globe to our shores to see and experience it. Rwanda seems to have struck the happiest coexistence and balance of the two, in spite of being arguably the most populated country in East Africa in terms of people per square kilometer, and inspired leadership committed to these goals has much to do with it.

I do not deny that all of our East African leaders do spend a thought or two, at times at least, on the environment and the need to protect it at nearly any cost, lest we leave a burned earth behind for our children’s children. Yet, that is clearly not enough and they need to listen more to green advocates and conservation gurus, just as President Kagame apparently does, and not envy him his success to raise the New Rwanda from the ashes of the 1994 genocide. They need to emulate him and his actions and copy much of what makes Rwanda such a tourism and conservation success story today. The Land of a Thousand Hills, born out of the ashes of one of the darkest tragedies in recent human history, is always worth visiting, always worth the journey.

The Author
Prof. Dr. Wolfgang H. Thome
Twitter: whthome
Blog: www.wolfganghthome.wordpress.com