Kikwete and ruling by pedecree

[Geza Ulole]

11th February 11
JK: Road won`t harm Serengeti gnus

The Guardian Reporter

[FONT=ArialMT, sans-serif]President Jakaya Kikwete has said conservationists have exaggerated concerns that a planned road around the Serengeti National Park would disrupt the annual migration of 2 million zebras and wildebeest. [/FONT]
[FONT=ArialMT, sans-serif]Only an unpaved, 54-kilometer (34-mile) section of a planned highway around the northern periphery of the park will pass into the Serengeti, Kikwete said in an e-mailed statement to Bloomberg late yesterday. [/FONT]
"[FONT=ArialMT, sans-serif]No tarmac road will be built through the Serengeti," Kikwete said, according to the statement. "We will only build a road around the park to ease very serious transport challenges facing the poorer communities around the park." [/FONT]
[FONT=ArialMT, sans-serif]The proposed road will cut travel times for residents in some northern Tanzania villages living without tapped water or electricity who currently spend eight hours on a 170-kilometer dirt track to reach Mto wa Mbu, a town outside the park, he said. [/FONT]
[FONT=ArialMT, sans-serif]The northern route has drawn criticism from environmentalists including the Wildlife Conservation Society, based in New York, and the Zoological Society of London. [/FONT]
[FONT=ArialMT, sans-serif]Vehicles moving along the road may collide with the migrating mammals, while the increased traffic may block their northward migration to the Maasai Mara National Reserve in neighbouring Kenya, the groups said on Aug. 25. They recommended the government choose an alternative option to expand the road network, possibly closer to the southern edge of the park. [/FONT]
[FONT=ArialMT, sans-serif]Tanzania has declined a funding offer from the World Bank to study the possibility of a southern route, Kikwete said. [/FONT]
[FONT=ArialMT, sans-serif]The annual migration of the zebras and wildebeest, also known as gnus, starts in Tanzania around October as a seasonal dry spell begins and herds follow rainfall north in search of grazing, according to conservationists. The phenomenon was chosen as one of the seven natural wonders of the world in a 2006 survey by USA Today and ABC News' Good Morning America. [/FONT]
[FONT=ArialMT, sans-serif]The Serengeti, in northwestern Tanzania, gets it names from the word Siringitu of the Maasai tribe who are native to the area, meaning "the place where the land moves on forever." [/FONT]
[FONT=ArialMT, sans-serif]The area is designated a Unesco World Heritage Site and attracts as many as 90,000 tourists every year. [/FONT]

THE GUARDIAN


MY TAKE
It seems this dude knows too much than the overwhemingly number of ecological and wildlife scientists that oppose the project! he even decline a WB offer to fund the southern route... i think the GOT has issues with the GOK, trying to flex muscles since they both have been head to head on issues from the soda ash project to the sell of ivory now to the construction of road across Serengeti! I think this competition won't be devastating...

 

[Byendangwero]

Ni mara yangu ya kwanza kusikia serikali anayoiongoza JK inasimama kwa upande wa wananchi masikini dhidi ya matakwa ya wafadhili; ndiyo maana nachelea ya kwamba pengine kuna maslahi binafsi ya wakubwa yaliyojificha ndani ya sakata hilo.