Hun skabte en lille protestbevægelse mod den nu påbegyndte opførelse af en af verdens største dæmninger i Østafrika – den voksede og nu har hun fået den ultimative belønning i form af en global hædersbevisning for at ville beskytte miljøet og dets fattige beboere, som rammes af projektet.
Ikal Angelei, a young Kenyan woman, is leading a protest movement that could yet block one of East Africa’s most significant infrastructure projects, BBC online writes Monday.
The campaign has netted Ms Angelei one of this year’s Goldman Prizes, one of the highest annual honours for grassroots environmental activists.
Not that there are too many grass roots in the Turkana region of Kenya, on the border with Ethiopia, South Sudan and Uganda. Rains have been infrequent as far back as communal memory stretches and have become even scarcer in recent years.
The region’s prized water resource is Lake Turkana.
It is one of those unusual lakes that has no outflow; this means that water, which flows in and is not used directly, either evaporates (fordamper) or percolates (siver) down into aquifers (underjordiske vandførende lag), which in turn provide water for those pastoralists (kvægnomader) who keep their herds some way distant from the lake itself.
Now, the Ethiopian government is building a major dam, GIBE-3 on the Lower Omo river just over the border. The Omo currently provides about 80 per cent of Lake Turkana’s water – se http://www.gibe3.com.et og http://www.gibe3.com.et/Newsletter%204.pdf
At 243 meters high, the dam would generate 1.870 MW at full flow. It would become the biggest dam in Africa, and the fourth-largest in the world (til sammenligning er den enorme Cahora Bassa-dæmning over Zambezi-floden i Mozambique 170 meter høj, red.).
Prime Minister Meles Zenawi says it must be built “at any cost” to help Ethiopia electrify and develop, and to power the irrigation schemes and plantations he wants to establish along the Omo valley.
The Kenyan government, which is likely to buy some of the electricity, also supports the scheme.
But Ikal Angelei (31) fears the dam could dry the lifeblood for hundreds of thousands of people in the river valley and around Lake Turkana.
Resulting in lowering the water level by many metres, increasing the already high salinity (saltholdighed), and preventing the drainage into aquifers that keeps cattle alive kilometres away.
Læs mere på http://www.goldmanprize.org og se direkte link til Angelei på
