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There are warnings that this development could be
‘another Aral Sea disaster’ for Lake Turkana, which will
see ‘50% of the lake’s Omo inflow being abstracted for
irrigation’, leading to a drop of at least 20 metres in the
lake’s water level, when the its average depth is only
30 metres. The dam and developing mega-farms are
already affecting the traditional livelihoods of native
ommunities in the area, and, more perniciously, water
levels and flows, which will affect both the river and
riparian ecosystem.
Filling the dams will temporarily decrease lake levels,
while their regulation of water flows will change
the hydrological cycle. Further water abstraction
for irrigation will permanently reduce the lake level.
Meanwhile, irrigation could also lead to pollutants
being returned to the river, through chemical run-
off and drainage. The dams will also see nutrients
deposited inside the reservoirs rather than along the
river and in Lake Turkana. A proposed annual artificial
flood from the dam is not, according to reports, based
on any sound scientific reasoning or sufficient after
irrigation abstraction to restore the natural annual
flood cycles.
The Ethiopian government masterplan for the
‘integrated development’ of the Lower Omo, including
the dams, did not examine potential downstream
impacts, including on Lake Turkana and Kenya, but a
later study commission by the African Development
Bank did raise serious concerns.
However, there is little empathy for traditional
pastoralist lifestyles among Ethiopia’s ruling elite, with
the late Prime Minister Meles Zenawi saying in 2011:
‘In the coming five years there will be a very big
irrigation project and related agricultural development
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in this zone. I promise you that, even though this area
is known as backward in terms of civilization, it will
become an example of rapid development’.
Dam and irrigation are designed to favour foreign
investment and cash crop development, according to
most critics, at high cost. Photographer Jane Baldwin
says: ‘
The loss of annual deposits of silt-laden floodwaters
and grazing land will create food shortages and
increase tribal and intertribal conflict.’.
Large dams have proved controversial in the past
despite gaining renewed support from the World Bank
(and despite reports that china has found problems
with its Three Gorges dam, including over resettled
peoples, pollution and potential geological disaster).
The World Commission on Dams declared in 2000:
‘”dams have made an important and significant
contribution to human development, and benefits
derived from them have been considerable...
[however] in too many cases an unacceptable and
often unnecessary price has been paid to secure those
benefits, especially in social and environmental terms,
by people displaced, by communities downstream, by
taxpayers and by the natural environment.”.’
Many critics argue that the solution is not more
large dams but smaller, locally decided and adapted
solutions (including check dams and water harvesting,
a subject we will revisit in a future edition).
Even using energy from these dams in textiles factories
raises questions and certainly the Gibe III should give
responsible brands serious cause for concern if they are
thinking of investing in agriculture in the Lower Omo
Valley of Ethiopia.
THE BRITISH RED CROSS
By Beza Tequame
The British Red Cross delivers an international family tracing and message service aimed at restoring and
maintaining family links between close relatives separated as a result of armed conflict, natural or other disasters.
To find your missing relatives, we need as much information as possible. We will help you fill out a form and send
this information to the Red Cross or Red Crescent National Society in the country you think your relative is in, or to
the International Committee of the Red Cross who will try to find your family.
Our ability to trace people depends on the information you can provide and local circumstances, including the
security situation in the relevant country. If you would like to use the international family tracing services, we can
arrange an appointment for you at your nearest Red Cross office.
A number if National Red Cross Societies in Europe are publishing photos pf people looking for their missing
relatives in the hope of reconnecting families.
You can also check if your family member is looking for you on www.tracetheface.org