Activists says mining firm menaces Kenyan coast
Copyright 2001 Reuters
August 24, 2001
NAIROBI - Plans by Canadian mining firm Tiomin Resources Inc. to build a titanium loading facility off the Kenyan coast threaten to cause irreparable environmental damage, a conservation group said yesterday.
Tiomin aims to build the terminal as part of a $165 million titanium mining project in the Kwale district near the east African country's Indian Ocean coastline.
The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) said a three-month study had shown the facility at the fishing village of Shimoni, situated near a marine conservation park and coral reef, would menace wildlife.
"It is now clear that it would be advisable to adopt the precautionary principle in favour of the biodiversity and ecosystem of Shimoni," IFAW regional director for east Africa Michael Wamithi said in a statement.
IFAW said the company should look for another site for the terminal that would export 460,000 tonnes of titanium, mined at one of the world's biggest deposits of the mineral at a site 12 km (eight miles) inland from pristine white beaches.
Critics of the project say it will cause serious environmental damage and complain that the firm has not paid farmers sufficient compensation for their land at the site.
The mine would be the biggest single foreign investment that Kenya's struggling economy has seen for the last five years. It would create 200 direct jobs with an estimated spin-off of at least 1,000 more.