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MUGA: Aberdares road an environmental catastrophe

From the moment it is completed, we'll be marking time awaiting the day when Nairobi runs out of water.

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by The Star

Columnists28 February 2024 - 13:24
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In Summary


  • The Aberdares range is a key water catchment area, from which the streams that supply most of the fresh water available for use in Nairobi and surrounding areas originate.
  • The road cannot help but bring a great deal of human activity into the Aberdares, disrupting what has hitherto been a pristine montane ecosystem.

Many of us still gaze in awe whenever we see trains moving at high speed on the elevated sections (viaducts) of the Standard Gauge Railway line.

More than anything else, these viaducts remind us that we do have – at last – a 21st century railway system.

But these viaducts – these marvels of modern engineering – are not just for show.

They represent a deliberate policy decision of minimising any potential disturbance to the animals in the two game parks that this railway line crosses: the Tsavo National Park in the upper coast region; and the Nairobi National Park, which is within the city boundaries.

With this in mind – given this willingness to accommodate environmental considerations in the construction of modern infrastructure – it is surprising to read of the new tarmac road planned for Central Kenya, which will cut across the Aberdares National Park.

Surprising because although admittedly the alternative route would be longer and therefore more expensive to construct, the logic applied to the road planned for this region, is different from that applied to the building of the SGR railway.

The principle which should have been established by the SGR is that where a priceless “environmental asset” is likely to be severely damaged by a new infrastructure project, then the need to preserve that irreplaceable environmental asset must prevail, even if this leads to increased costs for the new infrastructure.

This is the policy that was evidently applied to those sections of both Tsavo National Park and Nairobi National Park which have viaducts and wildlife channels to ensure that the animals can safely pass below as the train whizzes above them.

Such game parks should ideally be viewed scientifically as “environmental assets,” insofar as they have a clear economic value, rather than viewed sentimentally as “our heritage.”

And in this context, the fact is that the Aberdares National Park is far more valuable to Kenya than the Tsavo National Park, even though Tsavo is by far our largest game park.

Why do I say this?

Well, the rolling plains of Tsavo may provide for an excellent safari experience. But Kenya has plenty of other game parks, some of which even now do not get an optimal number of visitors. And as proved by the 100-year-old 'Metre Gauge Railway', which transported passengers and cargo for all those decades past without too much trouble (if not necessarily with efficiency), it is possible to have roads and railways cut through Tsavo without causing major environmental damage.

But when it comes to the Aberdares National Park, we are dealing with a far more fragile ecosystem, and one which serves a far more important purpose than even tourism. The Aberdares range is a key water catchment area, from which the streams that supply most of the fresh water available for human use in Nairobi and surrounding areas originate. This water supply is irreplaceable.

The late Prof Wangari Maathai, who won a Nobel Prize for her work on environmental causes, used to speak with great passion of the many glistening streams she remembered from the days of her youth in Central Kenya, bubbling steadily down the hills and joining up to form the rivers that flowed down to the plains. She lamented that many of these streams no longer existed at all, primarily due to human activity.

And that is what many conservationists fear about the proposed road through the Aberdares National Park. No matter how pure the intentions of those who champion its construction, this road cannot help but bring a great deal of human activity into the Aberdares, disrupting what has hitherto been a pristine montane ecosystem.

To put it plainly, from the moment that this road is completed – if indeed it is built to run right through the Aberdares National Park and not around it – we will be marking time awaiting the day when the city of Nairobi and its numerous satellite townships, run out of water.

For what the Kenya National Highway Authority will have engineered is an irreversible ecological catastrophe. And this is something which future generations – facing devastating water shortages in the capital city, far worse than anything we have ever seen – will not forgive.

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