KEY POINTS:
One of the world's great wildlife spectacles, the colossal gathering of flamingos in East Africa, is now directly threatened by industrial development, conservationists are warning.
Lake Natron in Tanzania, home to half a million bright-pink, long-legged and long-necked lesser flamingos, faces the prospect of a huge soda ash plant being built on its hitherto-unspoiled shores, which is likely to destroy the birds' breeding habitat.
The development is being pushed by Lake Natron Resources, part of Indian company Tata Chemicals.
The company wants to pump salty water from the lake for the production and export of sodium carbonate (washing soda), to build a coal-fired power station and to house more than 1000 construction staff on site.
Conservationists have fiercely attacked the plans.
"Putting Lake Natron at risk is bonkers. It is a pristine site like no other in the world," said Dr Chris Magin, officer for Africa for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.
"The chances of lesser flamingos continuing to breed at Lake Natron in the face of such mayhem are next to zero. This development will leave lesser flamingos in East Africa facing extinction and should be stopped in its tracks and sunk in water so deep it can never be revived."
Lake Natron hosts more than 500,000 lesser flamingos in summer - 75 per cent of the world's breeding population - and has been the birds' only nesting site in East Africa for 45 years. It is listed by the international Ramsar Wetland Convention and designated an Important Bird Area by Bird Life International.
At 120-150cm high, the lesser flamingo (Phoeniconaias minor) is the smallest of the six flamingo species and one of the two species in the Old World, the other being the greater flamingo.
The greater flamingo has a pale-pink bill with a contrasting black tip, and the lesser flamingo has a dark-crimson bill and is also shorter and redder in colour.
It is an altogether spectacular creature, and in its flocks of tens of thousands has delighted wildlife tourists for decades.
Lake Natron is one of only five breeding sites for lesser flamingos in the world, but if it is damaged there is no evidence that the birds will breed successfully elsewhere.
Dr Magin said: "This could be the beginning of the end for the lesser flamingo."
- Independent
