• In September, an avocado investor was ordered to stop work on the proposed 180-acre fenced farm in the fragile ecosystem.
• Big Life Foundation co-founders Nick Brandt and Richard Bonham said avocados are luxury products for international agribusiness.
Image: ANDREW KASUKU
The proposed avocado farm within the Amboseli ecosystem will spell doom for wildlife and people's livelihoods, a lobby has said.
Big Life Foundation co-founders Nick Brandt and Richard Bonham said avocados are luxury products for international agribusiness. Big Life Foundation protects 1.6 million acres of wilderness in the Amboseli-Tsavo-Kilimanjaro ecosystem.
“The profits are big, and cash speaks much louder than elephants or local communities for that matter. Many companies selling these products will stop at almost nothing as they relentlessly pursue expansion into the wildlife-rich rangelands of Kenya,” the duo said in a statement.
Brandt and Bonham said bulldozers have already cleared 180 acres of wildlife habitat, reducing it to bare earth in preparation for its future inhabitants – avocado trees.
“It has started in the Kimana Wildlife Corridor, a critically important area where some of Amboseli’s most iconic bull elephants spend months of the year,” the duo said.
Brandt and Bonham said the corridor is the only remaining direct route for wildlife to travel between Amboseli and the southern part of Tsavo West National Park.
They said if the agricultural company goes ahead with its plans, it will be an open invitation for developers to continue with the rapid destruction of Amboseli’s unique environment.
Brandt and Bonham said wildlife numbers across Kenya are declining steeply, and Amboseli is one of the last places in the country with healthy elephant populations. “Why destroy one of the last places in East Africa where herds of elephants still roam free?”
“No one travels to Africa to look at fields of avocado trees.”
They said the developments are also a direct threat to human beings as the greater Amboseli ecosystem has a conservation and ecotourism industry that supports thousands of jobs and generates tens of millions of dollars for the local and national economies.
In September, an avocado investor was ordered to stop work on the proposed 180-acre fenced farm in the fragile ecosystem. The investor was at the time given 10 days to show cause why a licence issued by Nema should not be revoked.
The investor planned to grow avocados, tomatoes, onions, garlic and other vegetables.
Initially, Nema had issued a license to Harji Mavji and Suresh Kurji Kerai, representing KiliAvo Fresh Ltd, to put up a farm.
Nema director general Mamo Mamo in a letter dated September 18 said the proposed farm was within a zoned wildlife corridor.
He said Amboseli is a fragile ecosystem and the approved plan by the Amboseli Land Owners and Conservation Association has zoned areas for conservation and livestock grazing. It conforms to the Amboseli Ecosystem Management Plan.
The proposed farm, however, violates the plan endorsed by all stakeholders and gazetted under Wildlife Act, 2015.
Mamo said if the licence is revoked, the investor must submit a fresh EIA study to facilitate in-depth evaluation of the potential impact of the project and consultations.
But speaking for his investor client, lawyer John Lampat told the Star that they met all the requirements.
"We did an EIA which went through. However, several stakeholders in the ecosystem raised complaints that Nema should not have licensed the project. Nema did its part," he told the Star on the phone.
The Amboseli ecosystem is one of Africa’s most spectacular landscapes and most visited tourist destinations.
It is home to endangered wildlife species, including more than 2,000 elephants.
The Amboseli ecosystem primarily comprises large community-owned group ranches which have always enabled freedom of movement for wildlife, humans, and livestock.
The ability of animals to travel with the seasons in search of food and water, on ancient migratory paths, is essential for their survival.
Brandt and Bonham said the transition from continuous community-owned landscapes to private ownership of land by individuals threatens to shatter the ecosystem into tens of thousands of small 20, 40, and 60-acre plots.
“These small plots will then be sold and converted to other uses, wildlife will run out of space, and the Amboseli ecosystem’s wildlife populations will be decimated.”
Fortunately, they said, there are key wildlife corridors and dispersal areas that can still be protected.
“But if things go wrong – if we don’t act now – we risk the collapse of the entire ecosystem.
Big Life Foundation has in the past taken on poaching and been successful.
Brandt and Bonham said there was no point in having hundreds of rangers patrolling for poachers, long fences to reduce conflict between elephants and farmers if there was no wild land left for the animals.
“Securing wildlife corridors and dispersal areas is Big Life’s most urgent task, and it is possible, but there is no time to waste.”
Edited by A.N