Cutting flow of Omo River will kill cradle of mankind

I am against a proposal to dam the Omo River flowing into Lake Turkana.

Whilst there is an argument that the creation of a large hydroelectric facility in western Ethiopia is a good idea because the flow of water into Lake Turkana will remain, the current project includes the extraction of over half of the water from the Omo River for irrigation of huge farms.

The removal of half of the flow of water from Omo will result in the end of Lake Turkana because of the huge level of evaporation of water from the lake.

This will create full desert in all of the region bordered by Ethiopia, Sudan, Uganda and Kenya and cause migration of population.

The desert will spread in all directions up to the mountains and perhaps over them as global warming bites further.

The habitable agricultural part of Kenya (just 20 per cent of its area) already has the highest population density of any country in the world.

And, the population is growing at a rate of about 4% per year. If that rate continues the number of people will double in just 17 years, creating an extreme scarcity of food.

An additional inrush of population due to spreading desert and a reduction due to desertification of fertile land available to grow crops for Africans will destabilise Kenya and Uganda, Southern Sudan and Ethiopia as well.

The increased food grown for people outside Africa using water from the Omo dam will be gained from the starvation of Africans. This will allow the new colonial powers to exploit Africans even further, resulting in the population of East Africa becoming poorer and poorer – and dead.

Turning to the question of the justification of the dam to produce hydroelectricity, Kenya has enough geothermal capacity under its ground to supply about 7,000Mw of electricity.

This provides an opportunity to supply all of the anticipated electricity for the whole of East Africa for up to 25 years.

Why is Kenya turning down the biggest export opportunity the region has ever seen to invest in an unnecessary and undesirable irrigation dam in Ethiopia? Geothermal energy is clean and very cheap compared to oil, which makes it a wonderful investment for the people of Kenya.

Please let us not shoot this entire region of the world in the foot. Cancel the Omo River dam.

Lake Turkana is the cradle of mankind.

MICHAEL FAIRHEAD,
Nairobi.