PROTEST AGAINST URANIUM MINING IN THE SELOUS GOES INTERNATIONAL
As a taste of things to come, should the Tanzanian government go ahead with their controversial plans to reduce the size of the Selous Game Reserve and risk environmental degradation and significant pollution of land and water, have German activists began a campaign against the project. A letter addressed to President Kikwete was reportedly handed over to the Tanzanian Ambassador in Berlin / Germany and the groups involved have already made it clear that they will seek to build a global alliance against Uranium mining in the Selous, similar to the Stop the Serengeti Highway coalition which has spread around the globe.
Germany notably has committed to get out of nuclear power generation and substitute it with renewable energy sources like wind and solar power, the first major industrial nation to make such a bold statement. The green movement in Germany has over the past decade gained in respectability when the party entered into coalition governments with various partners, assuring at state and federal level that environmental concerns are understood, addressed and mitigated.
There have been no official comments from Dar es Salaam yet though the local environmental and conservation groups have welcomed the news, knowing they have allies around the globe to assist them and strengthen their voices, which locally have been often suppressed and brushed aside as anti government or anti development, and been bedeviled, mocked and ridiculed by government sources times and again. Watch this space as a series of planned projects by the Tanzanian government with significant impact on the marine and land environment are being pursued irrespective of the potential damages done to the environment and the countrys biodiversity.
