nuclear-news

Uranium mining in the Selous has led to world wide protests and led to the government putting a mechanism into place to carve out over 200 square kilometres of the Selous territory to evade sanctions by UNESCO, which had made the Selous Game Reserve a World Heritage Site – for the Tanzanian government not an issue it seems as they habitually ignore that status in favour of ‘development’ as the equally controversial Serengeti highway plans prove.

Uranium mining is by wide consent a hugely toxic affair, and even carving out the Selous site for mining and production will still affect the reserve and its water sources, as well as the people depending on the rivers and streams, for generations to come…….

Wrote one regular highly respected conservationist: ‘What do you expect when a government hellbent to mine uranium commissions a study undertaken by a government agency. Of course they dance to their masters tunes. They continue to belittle the fallout and effects of uranium which is a toxic substance….

Tanzania has a huge potential in tourism especially in the Selous where only a small area has been tapped into. New camps could generate a lot more employment than a uranium mine would do and it is sustainable long term which mining is not. But there are of course those pending issues with poaching, which has been rampant in the Selous and government is doing little to stop it because word has it senior people are benefiting from the trade in blood ivory……

So perhaps, cynical as we know them to be, they let the reserve be poached empty and then shrug and tell us that is is no longer suitable for tourism and did they not always say mining is the future for the country? And of course the Selous region is remote, so they are obviously not bothered about the relatively few people who will be affected when the toxic fallout strikes. Investigative journalism in our country is all but dead because of the way the media are harassed when they exposed bad schemes in the past which involved government. No one will dare to really expose the dangers of uranium mining to the Tanzanian public and so most people will only get the uptalk of government and not the downside of the environmental fallout’. http://www.eturbonews.com/41136/tanzania-conservationists-rejects-uranium-mining-approvals