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Planned Nuclear Plant in a Kenyan Top Tourist Hub, Home to Endangered Species Sparks Protest

The construction of the 1,000MW nuclear plant is set to begin in 2027 and be operational by 2034, with a cost of 500 billion Kenyan shillings ($3.8 billion) - The AP
The construction of the 1,000MW nuclear plant is set to begin in 2027 and be operational by 2034, with a cost of 500 billion Kenyan shillings ($3.8 billion) - The AP
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Planned Nuclear Plant in a Kenyan Top Tourist Hub, Home to Endangered Species Sparks Protest

The construction of the 1,000MW nuclear plant is set to begin in 2027 and be operational by 2034, with a cost of 500 billion Kenyan shillings ($3.8 billion) - The AP
The construction of the 1,000MW nuclear plant is set to begin in 2027 and be operational by 2034, with a cost of 500 billion Kenyan shillings ($3.8 billion) - The AP

Dozens rallied against a proposal to build Kenya's first nuclear power plant in one of the country's top coastal tourist hubs which also houses a forest on the tentative list of the UNESCO World Heritage site.

Kilifi County is renowned for its pristine sandy beaches where hotels and beach bars line the 165-mile-long coast and visitors boat and snorkel around coral reefs or bird watch in Arabuko Sokoke forest, a significant natural habitat for the conservation of rare and endangered species, according to the UN organization.

The project, proposed last year, is set to be built in the town of Kilifi — about 522 kilometers (324 miles) southeast of the capital, Nairobi. Many residents have openly opposed the proposal, worried about what they say are the negative effects of the project on people and the environment, leading to a string of protesters which at times turned violent.

Muslim for Human Rights (MUHURI) led the march Friday in Kilifi to the county governor’s office where they handed him a petition opposing the construction of the plant.

Some chanted anti-nuclear slogans while others carried placards with “Sitaki nuclear”, Swahili for “I don’t want nuclear.”

The construction of the 1,000MW nuclear plant is set to begin in 2027 and be operational by 2034, with a cost of 500 billion Kenyan shillings ($3.8 billion).

Francis Auma, a MUHURI activist, told the Associated Press that the negative effects of the nuclear plant outweigh its benefits.

“We say that this project has a lot of negative effects; there will be malformed children born out of this place, fish will die, and our forest Arabuko Sokoke, known to harbor the birds from abroad, will be lost,” Auma said during Friday’s protests.

Juma Sulubu, a resident who was beaten by the police during a previous demonstration, attended Friday's march and said: “Even if you kill us, just kill us, but we do not want a nuclear power plant in our Uyombo community.”

Timothy Nyawa, a fisherman, participated in the rally out of fear that a nuclear power plant would kill fish and in turn his source of income. “If they set up a nuclear plant here, the fish breeding sites will all be destroyed."

Phyllis Omido, the executive director at the Centre for Justice Governance and Environmental Action, who also attended the march, said Kenya’s eastern coastal towns depended on eco-tourism as the main source of income and a nuclear plant would threaten their livelihoods.

“We host the only East African coastal forest, we host the Watamu marine park, we host the largest mangrove plantation in Kenya. We do not want nuclear (energy) to mess up our ecosystem,” she said.

Her center filed a petition in Nov. 2023 in parliament calling for an inquiry and claiming that locals had limited information on the proposed plant and the criteria for selecting preferred sites. It also raised concerns over the risks to health, the environment and tourism in the event of a nuclear spill, saying the country was undertaking a “high-risk venture” without proper legal and disaster response measures in place. The petition also expressed unease over security and the handling of radioactive waste in a country prone to floods and drought.

The Senate suspended the inquiry until a lawsuit two layers filed in July seeking to stop the plant’s construction, claiming public participation meetings were rushed and urging the Nuclear Power and Energy Agency (Nupea) not to start the project, was heard.

Nupea said construction would not begin for years and environmental laws were under consideration, adding that adequate public participation was carried out.

The nuclear agency also published an impact assessment report last year that recommended policies be put in place to ensure environmental protections, including detailed plans for the handling of radioactive waste, measures to mitigate environmental harm, such as setting up a nuclear unit in the national environment management authority, and emergency response teams.

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It's Not Just Fat Bear Week in Alaska. Trail Cameras Are Also Capturing Wolves, Moose

This image made from video provided by Donna Gail Shaw shows a view from a trail camera of a brown bear and a black bear on Aug. 29, 2019, in Anchorage, Alaska. (Donna Gail Shaw via AP)
This image made from video provided by Donna Gail Shaw shows a view from a trail camera of a brown bear and a black bear on Aug. 29, 2019, in Anchorage, Alaska. (Donna Gail Shaw via AP)
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It's Not Just Fat Bear Week in Alaska. Trail Cameras Are Also Capturing Wolves, Moose

This image made from video provided by Donna Gail Shaw shows a view from a trail camera of a brown bear and a black bear on Aug. 29, 2019, in Anchorage, Alaska. (Donna Gail Shaw via AP)
This image made from video provided by Donna Gail Shaw shows a view from a trail camera of a brown bear and a black bear on Aug. 29, 2019, in Anchorage, Alaska. (Donna Gail Shaw via AP)

Millions of people worldwide tuned in for a remote Alaska national park’s “Fat Bear Week” celebration this month, as captivating livestream camera footage caught the chubby predators chomping on salmon and fattening up for the winter.
But in the vast state known for its abundant wildlife, the magical and sometimes violent world of wild animals can be found close to home, The Associated Press reported.
Within half a mile of a well-populated neighborhood in Anchorage, the state’s biggest city, several trail cameras regularly capture animals ranging in size from wolverines to moose. And a Facebook group that features the animals caught on webcams has seen its number of followers grow nearly six-fold since September, when it posted footage of a wolf pack taking down a moose yearling.
But it’s not all doom-and-gloom videos on the page, and the actual death of the moose calf was not shown. The group, named Muldoon Area Trail Photos and Videos, also features light-hearted moments such as two brown bear cubs standing on their hind legs and enthusiastically rubbing their backs against either side of a tree to mark it.
Ten cameras capture lynx, wolves, foxes, coyotes, eagles, and black and brown bears — "just whatever is out here,” said Donna Gail Shaw, a co-administrator of the Facebook group.
In addition to the 290,000 or so human residents of Anchorage, nearly 350 black bears, 65 brown bears and 1,600 moose also call it home.
Joe Cantil, a retired tribal health worker, said the idea for the page started when looking down at the vast open lands of Alaska from an airplane on a hunting trip near Fairbanks.
“You’re out in the middle of nowhere, so you see animals acting however they act whenever we’re not around,” he said.
He later met wildlife officials in the Anchorage park conducting an inventory of predators. He saw them set up a trap and three webcams where a moose had been killed.
“When I saw that, I thought, ‘Yeah, I can do that,’” he said.
Cantilset up a low-tech camera, and caught his first animal on it, a wolverine, fueling a passion that led to the creation of the Facebook page in 2017.
Then, while hiking, he met Shaw, a retired science education professor and associate dean of the College of Education at the University of Alaska Anchorage.
Shaw was intrigued by his game cameras and began bugging him to see the footage.
“Well, he finally got tired of me pestering him and one day he said, ‘You know, you can get your own camera,’ and so that started my hobby," said Shaw, a native of Texas.
She started by strapping a single $60 camera to a tree. Now she has nine cameras, seven of which are active in Far North Bicentennial Park, a 4,000-acre (1,619-hectare) park stretching for miles along the front range of the Chugach Mountains on the east side of Anchorage.
Her cameras are set up anywhere between a quarter-mile to a half-mile (402 meters to 804 meters) of the Chugach Foothills neighborhood and she frequently posts to the Facebook group page. Cantil also posts videos from his three cameras.
“I knew there was wildlife out here because I would occasionally run into a moose or a bear on the trail, but I didn’t know how much wildlife was out here until I put the cameras on it,” Shaw said.
She replaces batteries and storage cards about once a week, walking into the woods to do so armed with an air horn to announce her presence, two cans of bear spray and a .44 caliber handgun for protection.
Many of the page’s followers are Anchorage residents looking for information about which animals may currently be roaming around the popular trail system. Other users join to see what the cameras capture, including people from other states who “enjoy looking at the wildlife that we have here,” she said.
Shaw said that every few weeks, her cameras catch a wolf or two — and sometimes even a pack. This year she was surprised when a pack of five wolves came by, walking quietly in a single file.
Last month, while she collected memory cards, she saw moose fur on the ground across the creek from two of her cameras. After she spotted what looked like a roughed-up patch of dirt where a bear might bury its kill, she assumed it was another moose attacked by a black bear, similar to what happened earlier not too far away.
But when she checked the memory card, it instead showed the wolves taking down the moose yearling as the moose’s mother attempted to protect her offspring by trying to kick the wolves away with her long legs.