One of the world’s most prominent breeding sites in Africa for lesser flamingo, an endangered bird, may be destroyed by industrial pollution, courtesy Tata Chemicals.

Conservationists are up in arms against a project involving Lake Natron Resources Ltd apprehending destruction of the flamingo breeding site in a Tanzanian lake that hosts more than 500,000 flamingos in summer. It has been the bird’s only nesting site in East Africa in the last 45 years.

Factory project
The Lake Natron Resources Ltd is a joint venture company floated by Tata Chemicals Ltd and the Naitonal Development Corporation of Tanzanian Government in which the Indian multinational has majority stake.

The company plans to set up a soda ash factory in the vicinity of Lake Natron in Tanzania which is one of the foremost breeding grounds of pink-legged flamingo — the smallest of the six flamingo species. Soda ash is used in making glass, detergents and soaps.

The lake being another natural source of soda ash, the company plans to pump salty water from it for production of soda ash. It runs another soda ash plant in Lake Magadi in Kenya through its UK-based subsidiary Brunner Mond.

The Tanzanian lake is listed by the international Ramsar Wetlands Convention as one of the Ramsar sites.  “The chances of lesser flamingos continuing to breed at Lake Natron in the face of such mayhem are next to zero. This development will leave lesser flamingos in East Africa facing extinction,” said Dr Chris Magin, an official of the UK-based Royal Society for Protection of Birds.

Estimates are that there are between 2.2 million and 3.25m lesser flamingos in the world of which between 1.5m and 2.5m are found in East Africa.

Tata Chemicals officials said a Norway-based consulting company, Norconsult, has been asked to assess the environment and social aspects of the project. The preliminary report on the environmental and social impact assessment (ESIA) was shared with about 40 Tanzanian and international experts at a meeting in Dar-Es-Salaam on July 12 at which two officials from Tata Chemicals were present. The participants were given a chance to raise questions on the report.

No solutions
From those present in that meeting, Deccan Herald has learnt that the project proponents accepted damage to the flamingo population. But they did not provide any other mitigation measures except “avoiding the nesting areas”.

In the meeting, Norconsult presented the summary findings of the ESIA survey, which the critics say lack in details like mitigation measures for the flamingos, hydrological data and the mode of transport for the end product.

The company on the other hand stated that it was a preliminary report and inputs from various stakeholders, received at the meeting will be included in the final ESIA report. The participants and any other related organisations are welcome to put forward any concerns and issues, it said in a statement.