Community Empowerment to Campaign against Mkuju River Uranium Project

2 Jun 2014 Namtumbo, Tanzania, Africa Education | Forests

Dominic Malesa

This project aims to educate campaign and raise public awareness to local community leaders on the severe effects of mining uranium to people of Namtumbo District and to wildlife and forests of Selous Game Reserve which is a home to the world’s largest elephant population. This project campaigns that the project is abandoned or revised.

Training at Magazini Ward.

Training at Magazini Ward.

Tanzania’s government has granted a license to mine uranium in the Selous Game Reserve and the surrounding area to a major international mining company. SAHU is outraged since mining will produce 60 million tons of radioactive and poisonous waste during its 10-year lifespan. The radioactive wastes pose serious ecological challenges, especially the pollution to Mkuju River, Selous Game Reserve and the biological community around. Uranium mining which does not respect ecosystems and the sacred natural sites has a direct impact on the lives and well-being of communities of present and future generations. Uranium mining will drive people to destruction whereby no more conservation measures/initiatives will be practiced by indigenous people in the area.

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This project will empower community leaders, local leaders of civil societies, legislators, counselors, and community’s cell leaders with education on the dangerous effects of Mkuju River Uranium Project in the district of Namtumbo. The empowered leaders will also train the people in their communities the side effects of uranium in their community. After the training the organization will organize collective campaigns by means of demonstration to the District Commissioner of Namtumbo who will be responsible to take the demands to the ministers in charge. The work will enforce government to offer education about uranium to the local people in the surrounding community. It will empower people to respond timely, effectively and to appropriate authority if they encounter and observe any strange behavior in their community connected with uranium side effects.

This project will call for the government to enact laws which guarantee the safety of local people. This initiative will empower people to refuse the Mkuju River Uranium Project. The abandonment of the project will stop poaching activities. In this place already elephant poachers have taken advantage of road constructed in the area by increasing their activities.

This project will reinforce people’s natural laws, customs and traditional ways to preserve the sacred forests of the area. The project will empower the local people to continue to be responsible in their actions to conserve the environments of Selous Game Reserve. The project will enable people to know and understand that their livelihood will be seriously affected by the Mkuju Uranium mining project.

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