Ikal Angelei grew up on the shores of Lake Turkana in Kenya. This is the world’s largest desert lake, a source of life to the people of this region in the north of Kenya.
Inland lakes are under threat in many areas of the world. Africa’s Lake Chad has shrunk dramatically over the last few decades, though it has seen a recent slight recovery. Central Asia’s Lake Baikal has virtually dried up. Now Lake Turkana is under threat.
Born in Kitale and raised in the violent region of the Lake Turkana Basin, 31-year-old Angelei was taught at an early age to protect herself amid ethnic conflict between the indigenous communities of Kenya and Ethiopia, according to the Goldman Environmental Award citation. Her call to action came in 2008 after she heard from her employer, the renowned anthropologist and conservationist, Dr. Richard Leakey, of the construction of what will become Africa’s largest dam along the Omo River in Ethiopia, begun two years earlier. She was working at the Turkana Basin Institute, an anthropology research center, when she heard from research scientists about construction of the massive dam—and immediately felt a responsibility to stop it.
Outraged at the fact that plans were moving forward without any consultation from local communities, she founded the group Friends of Lake Turkana (FoLT).
Angelei follows in the footsteps of her father, a distinguished member of the Kenyan Parliament who opposed the construction of Turkwell Dam in the 1980s and 90s.
Angelei set up the NGO to protect the lake. Angelei immediately recognized that the dam would be the death of Lake Turkana and the end of the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of impoverished and marginalized people in the Lower Omo Basin and Lake Turkana regions. Angelei was lucky in that she had been educated abroad. But she was in a particularly good position to do something because she came from the local community. She spoke the languages. She understood the people’s way of life. And, it appeared, people were willing to listen to her.
The Kenyan and Ethiopian governments were working with a Chinese construction company to build the Gibe III dam, one of several dams, in order to provide electricity.
As Angelei said in an interview with the NGO International Rivers, this was a local, national and international issue.
As the FoLT explains, Angelei started her campaign to stop the construction of the dam.
In the few years that Angelei and FoLT have campaigned against the dam, they have managed to convince several financing organizations, including the World Bank, the European Investment Bank and the African Development Bank not to fund construction of the dam, which is 40 percent complete, and convinced the UNESCO World Heritage Committee to join the cause. The Kenyan Parliament also passed a resolution requiring the government to demand an independent environmental impact assessment of the dam.
This is an ongoing struggle. Angelei continues to trudge on as she is now pushing for the Kenyan government – which is in agreement with Ethiopia to purchase 60 percent of the electricity generated by the dam – to get out of the power purchase agreement and thus make it unjustifiable for China to continue funding the dam owing to the diminished demand.
She and the NGO cannot afford to let their guard down. Many people in Kenya and Ethiopia welcomed the news of the planned electricity windfall.
Her efforts have been recognized in 2012 when she won the Goldman Award for the environment, one of six recipients. The other awardees of what has been dubbed the “Nobel prize for the environment” are Ma Jun in China who is working to clean up industry; Evgenia Chrikova in Russia who is working to reroute a highway that would bisect Moscow’s protected Khimki Forest; Edwin Gariguez, a Catholic priest in the Philippines who is leading a grassroots movement against a large-scale nickel mine; Caroline Cannon in the USA who is helping her Inupiat community and Arctic waters stay safe from offshore oil and gas drilling; and Sofia Gatica who is helping local women fight to prevent the indiscriminate spraying of toxic agrochemicals, following the death of her infant from pesticide poisoning.
As Angelei said during her acceptance speech, she owes a debt of gratitude to the last Kenyan who won this award back in 1991, Nobel Laureate Late Prof Wangari Maathai, for her efforts through which she linked the day to day struggles and conflicts around the world to how man related with nature; a philosophy best understood by many communities around the world.
“The situation in Turkana is not a unique one, all around the world governments are destroying environments in the name of development both nationally and regionally, all in the name of geo-politics,” she told the audience. “We are witnessing as governments destroy the environment to increase their GDP’s. And while we appreciate the need to develop, meet Millenium goals by 2015, we agree that we all have to solve the current problems of access to energy and access to employment; we however cannot achieve these at the expense of the environment especially with the availability of alternatives and the reality of climate change.”
She talked of the challenges and suffering in the battle to save Lake Turkana and safeguard the people who depend on it. “It’s been three years of struggle to defend our environment, a journey that started with one person and one step, but grew to the Omo Basin-Lake Turkana family. Car breakdowns, fatigue that surpassed hunger, threats and abuses, appreciation and recognition, all these and more have been part of this journey. Along this journey I met lots of people both within and outside this country, those who opened up their homes to us, those who joined us in this struggle, those who shared their experiences, mentored me through the journey and even shared their meals.”
It has been a struggle, not without tears. Yet the Goldman Award given to this courageous activist helps shine a spotlight on an environmental trouble spot largely out of the news.
Check out Friends of Lake Turkana.