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Against strong objections from the UNESCO World Heritage Centre and conservation organizations, the government of Tanzania is going ahead with a hydroelectric dam in the iconic Selous, a World Heritage Site and Africa’soldest and largest uninhabited nature reserve. It was once home to a hundred thousand elephants. We’ve sent alerts on this before. You can read a detailed report on this by Dr. Ralph Baldus here.
Serengeti Watch helped organize a petition against the initial stage, the cutting of millions of trees, and we sent the government 187,000 signatures from around the world. But tragically, construction is going ahead without proper studies or consideration of alternatives. Even more, there may be uranium mining in the Selous’ future.
It shows us — even World Heritage Sites like the Selous and Serengeti are not off limits. We all need to pitch in and save what remains as our own legacy to future generations. Otherwise, our grandchildren will learn that once there were such Edens, but they are long gone. |
