The African Conservation Fund

Tanzania has committed to a $450 million joint venture with India’s Tata Chemicals Ltd. to mine soda ash on Lake Natron despite protests from an international conservation coalition, including African Conservation Centre. The processing plant, with a capacity of 500,000 metric tonnes per annum, could disrupt the most important breeding location for lesser flamingos in Africa.

Click here for a recent news account in the The East African. 

In July, the BBC reported: 

"Plans to build a soda ash plant alongside a lake in Tanzania threaten the future of one of the world's most beautiful birds, a rare species of flamingo, according to wildlife experts.

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) has condemned the proposals for the industrial plant next to Lake Natron, where 75% of the world's population of lesser flamingos gather to breed in the summer.

It is one of the most iconic and beautiful sights in Africa: the brilliant pink fringe around Lake Natron formed by half a million lesser flamingos strutting in the lake's shallow waters.

Lake Natron, close to Tanzania's border with Kenya in the Rift Valley, is a soda lake rich in salt, vitamins and bacteria which the flamingos feed on.

It is the most important breeding site for the lesser flamingo, a bird whose future is far from secure.

It is the salt in Lake Natron that has attracted the attention of industrialists who want to build a soda ash plant next to the lake."  Read full story here, with maps and photos. 

African Conservation Centre's director of ecology, Ken Mwathe, is the secretary of the international conservation coalition opposing the plant.