The proposal by the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) to put up a multimillion-shilling hotel in the Nairobi National Park is a baffling development.
One would have expected the KWS, as the custodian of the country’s wildlife heritage and an agent of conservation, to be in the front line in opposing any encroachment on this vital resource.
This park is one of the few green lungs left in a fast-growing city where concrete and glass are springing up everywhere.
The 117 square kilometres are a wildlife haven, hosting giraffes, the endangered black rhinos and dozens of other species.
Whatever justification the wildlife agency may have for this project, its management will no doubt recall the uproar over the routing of the standard gauge railway through the park.
Of course, the government eventually had its way and several acres of the pristine park were excised for the SGR in 2016.
Today, trains rumble through a portion of the park, disturbing wild animals that have borne the brunt of the expansion of housing projects into their habitat.
There is also a four-kilometre road through the same park, whose area continues to diminish.
The KWS intends to build an eco-lodge and restaurant in the park. Granted, it has the expertise to assess the environmental impact and other effects of such a project, but it is obvious that the structure will eat into the space left for animals. Couldn’t an alternative location have been found for the project?
Some activists are questioning why, 70 years since the park was set up, anyone would now want to radically change the status quo.
Nairobi is the only capital city in the world that has a national park within it, and that enviable reputation should not be sacrificed on the altar of vested interest.
This project may be good on paper, but as often happens, once the implementation begins, it could open avenues for greater encroachment and destruction of the park.
What is left of this park should be left intact for the immense environmental value it adds to the city.
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