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WORLD RAINFOREST MOVEMENT
MOVIMIENTO MUNDIAL POR LOS BOSQUES

International Secretariat
Maldonado 1858; Montevideo, Uruguay
E-Mail: [email protected]
Web page: http://www.wrm.org.uy
Editor: Ricardo Carrere
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Kenya: Pan African Paper Mills spread sickness

Pulp and paper production in Kenya is presently dominated by one firm, Pan
African Paper Mills (Panpaper), which is a joint venture between the
Kenyan Government, the World Bank's private investment arm International
Finance Corporation (IFC), and Orient Paper Mills, part of the Birhla
group from India. The pulp mill was established in 1974 and is based in
Webuye town, with a population of some 60,000 people, on the banks of the
Nzoia River which drains into Lake Victoria.

From the start, despite the potential environmental impacts concerning
plantation establishment, liquid effluents, air emissions, sludge and
solid waste disposal, the project did not benefit from a full
environmental assessment. The IFC's Environmental Review Summary simply
stated that the project was designed to meet all applicable World Bank
policies, and environmental, health and safety guidelines.

However, fears have proved right. A report from the local newspaper East
African Standard denounced in 1999 that local residents had accused the
paper mill of having turned a vast area of countryside into an
environmental wasteland and of being an economic and social burden.
Pollution of the Nzoia River on which residents depend for their water
needs was so severe that bathing in the river had become a health hazard
and animals drinking the water died. As a result of the chemicals produced
during pulping, the area around the mill was enveloped in foul smelling
air. Acid fumes and fly ash were resulting in the corrosion of the
corrugated iron roofs of the houses in the vicinity of the mill. In
addition, the mill's solid waste, which was dumped on fields as manure,
had led to a decline in local agricultural production.

At the time of the establishment of the mill, the Webuye area used to be a
heavily forested region and formed part of the Kagamena Indigenous Forest.
The mill's demand for wood had turned the area barren and the company
trucks now had to travel for over one hundred miles for raw material.

In 2003, the mill's impacts continued unabated. People in Webuye
complained that the smell emanating from the mill, mainly caustic,
chlorine and sulphuric acid was hazardous. Webuye is now viewed as a "sick
town". Experts said purification process of the waste from this factory
was inadequate and that effluent was emitted into the River Nzoia halfway
treated. Such half-purified effluent could be catastrophic for the river
or lake's aquatic life as its high oxygen demand would suck the gas in the
water bodies causing mass aquatic deaths.

The most recent event is the serious pollution of Lake Victoria, leading
to investigations by the Ministry of Water. Effluent from factories
including Panpaper are believed to have endangered aquatic life in the
lake.

On the other hand, logging has been a major cause of destruction of the
forests of Kenya, a country of environmental and ethnic diversity. The
Ogiek People, inhabitant of the forest, have been suffering the loss of
their homeland and livelihood, especially from the 90's onwards. Panpaper
is exempted from a government logging ban and is allowed to fell trees to
produce pulp for paper, being one of the actors held responsible by the
Ogiek (see WRM Bulletin Nº 45).

However, as recently as May of this year, a Director of PanPaper Mills,
Harri P. Singhi, called on the government of Kenya to assist the company
in solving the problem of shortage of wood supply. Would that mean more
forests to be degazetted? This, as well as Singhi's appeal to the
government to assist the company to reduce its cost of production lowering
the electricity tariff, make up the typical fiscal incentives which
include tax exemptions, investment, grants, subsidies, on which the global
pulp and paper industry develops. For its globalization it has counted
also on direct or indirect subsidies coming from bilateral agencies, State
investment, multilateral development banks, among other actors.

In the case of Kenya, the IFC had invested 86 million in the pulp, paper
and packaging production. According to Singhi, Panpaper is working closely
with IFC to expand the paper mills. The IFC Chief Special Operations
officer, Mr. Erick Cruikshank, confirmed that the institution would
continue working closely with the government as well as other industries
including Panpaper Mills.

Meanwhile, the Ogiek lose their lands, local agriculture is endangered,
deforestation increases, the environment is destroyed and the quality of
life of local residents worsens. For the sake of job creation, says the
official discourse. But the local labour component created in pulp and
paper mills is minimal and in many cases restricted to casual labourers
working under conditions which put their health at serious risk.

Article based on information from: "Kenya Is Exploring Alternative Sources
of Energy", Ooko Daniel, Hana,
http://www.hananews.org/WholeArticle.asp?artId=1747 ; "Ministry to Probe
Lake Pollution", The East African Standard,
http://allafrica.com/stories/200405260745.html ; "Wood and Wood Products
and Pulp and Paper Products Industries", Ministry of Tourism, Trade and
Industry, Republic of Kenya,
http://www.tradeandindustry.go.ke/documents/di_sector_wood_paper.pdf ;
"Exporting Africa: technology, trade and industrialization in Sub-Saharan
Africa", The United Nations University, INTECH,
http://www.unu.edu/unupress/unupbooks/uu34ee/uu34ee0s.htm ; "Kenya's legal
regime is mouthful but authorities won't stop pollution", Alphayo Otieno,
http://www.google.com.uy/search?q=cache:rd4l6B3GGXIJ:www.eastandard.net/...
; Environmental Defense,
http://www.environmentaldefense.org/article.cfm?ContentID=1577&Page=2&su...