![]() ![]() ![]() For Kadigi, the report findings were clear: “The soda ash plant would deliver far worse returns for local people.” ![]() “At the present levels of soda ash prices and investment costs the benefits of ecosystem conservation outweigh the benefits of soda ash mining,” CBA team economist, Reuben Kadigi, said in a press release. Conducted between September 2011 and May 2012, the team found that mining of soda ash at Lake Natron in Northern Tanzania is not economically viable, projecting a loss on investment between $44 and $492 million over the next 50 years. Mwathe and his Tanzanian team examined three possible options for Lake Natron: soda ash mining, business-as-usual, and ecotourism and livelihood promotion. “Cost benefit analysis is a good method of boosting scientific arguments against damaging developments,” Ken Mwathe, of Birdlife International told. ![]() Environmental and social costs and benefits were also included in this report. Such a cost/benefit analysis (CBA) is frequently used to measure, in financial terms, the potential impacts of such a project. To assist decision makers, Birdlife International and the Wildlife Conservation Society of Tanzania weighed the potential costs of the plant against the benefits. Viewed as a threat to nesting flamingoes (between 1.5-2.5 million, amounting to three-quarters of global population), the proposed plant has been actively resisted for years by conservation experts, tourists who travel to the area and spend money locally, and residents that work in the tourism industry. While the report shows agreement between residents and conservation groups that the project isn’t worth its cost or risk, the Tanzanian government is not giving up yet. This is good news for conservationists as the area is the most important breeding site in the world for lesser flamingos ( Phoenicopterus minor). In a choice between flamingoes and a soda ash plant, a new report shows that local residents near Lake Natron, Tanzania prefer flamingoes. One third of the world’s lesser flamingoes nest in Tanzania’s Lake Natron. ![]()
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