The Gibe hydroelectric project is one of a series of damming projects that have been undertaken by the Ethiopian government. The project is a public-private partnership planned as a 25 year national energy master plan of Ethiopia. The planned increase in power generation, however far exceeds domestic needs with the surplus which is estimated at 50 percent being exported to the neighboring countries including Kenya which the Ethiopian Electric Power Company (EEPCo) predicts to export 500MW to.
Download Gibe III Fact sheet and other documents here to obtain more background information pertaining to the Gibe III project.
The Gibe III threatens the biodiversity, livelihoods, and development of Northern Kenya, yet these potential risks have not been taken into account in the project planning by the Government of Ethiopia. The project has been opposed by local and international environmental and human rights groups and advocates. However, it was ultimately approved based on an incomplete Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) that did not adequately take into account the perspectives of indigenous communities around Lake Turkana.
To find out more about the threats the Lake faces with its construction, click here
Despite the potential impacts of the dam on the lake’s ecosystem and livelihoods, Ethiopia has continued to pursue the project without an adequate environmental and social impact assessment (ESIA) or proper consultation with the Lake Turkana Basin communities. FoLT is therefore working to bring attention to the impacts which Gibe III Dam will have on the Lake Turkana region and peoples and to find lasting solutions to this social injustice.
Visit our news or blog pages to read articles to learn more about our activities to oppose the Gibe III project.
Friends of Lake Turkana (FoLT), is a grassroots organization founded in 2009 whose mission is to foster social, economic and environmental justice in the Lake Turkana Basin.
This is through:
- Protect and conserve Lake Turkana, the Lake Turkana Basin and its environment.
- Advocate for the rights of the Turkana Basin communities,
- Increase the participation of communities in environmental protection policy formulation, sustainable management and wise use of natural resources, & lobby for increased participation of communities in the development andgovernance of their resources
History
FoLT was co-founded by Ikal Angelei and some concerned Kenyans who became privy to information that Gibe III dam in Ethiopia was being built on the Omo River which is a shared river between Kenya and Ethiopia was a project of unacceptable trade-offs between the 2 countries, and would jeopardize indigenous economies, destroy ecosystem and exacerbate conflicts. It was founded in November 2008 and received fiscal and office support from Turkana Basin Institute . FoLT worked and continues to work closely with the people of Lake Turkana and advocates on their behalf. FoLT was officially registered under in the Ministry of Lands through the Trust Act in October 2009
FoLT’s initial undertaking was the campaign to conserve and protect Lake Turkana and its ecosystem as well as protecting the rights of the Lake Turkana communities by campaigning for the halting of Gilgel Gibe III dam until certain conditions had been met. The conditions included;
- The conducting of a Comprehensive and independent Environmental Social Impact Assessment (Which was questionable because the project commenced in 2006 and the published EIA was done in 2008)
- Demonstrating that there is free, prior and informed consent of the affected tribes to the project;
- All impacts to Lake Turkana and the Lower Omo have been fully documented and analyzed by independent experts, and public hearings held in Kenya on the expected impacts;
- A participatory process has been undertaken with downstream communities, including those in Kenya.
It was while undertaking this campaign that we identified the lack of community awareness of their rights, the policies and obligations of state and non state actors. During community meetings that we created partnerships with grassroots community based organizations, beach management units (whose mandate is within the lake beaches), local leaders and various community associations and realized the need for the FoLT to take up other roles that would expand its operations within environment and resource rights and governance of the Turkana Basin.
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A ‘Force of One’: Ikal Angelei Speaks at Duke University on Gibe III Struggles
By Ellie Peters (BA, ’13), 2012 Nicholas School Undergraduate Communications Intern
DURHAM, NC – Environmental activist Ikal Angelei spoke to a group of graduate and undergraduate students at Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment on Friday, Sept. 14, about her efforts to stop the construction of a mega dam that would affect more than 500,000 people living in Kenya and Ethiopia.
Angelei’s work to halt construction of the controversial dam won her a prestigious Goldman Prize in Environmental Activism earlier this year.
Her talk at the Nicholas School was part of the 2012 Environmental Institutions Seminar Series, sponsored by the University PhD Program in Environmental Policy (UPEP) and the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.
Introduced as a “force of one,” Angelei has spearheaded the movement to stop the construction of the Gibe III hydroelectric dam on the Omo River , which provides 90 percent of the water in Lake Turkana. The world’s largest desert lake, Turkana straddles the border of Ethiopia and Kenya and is a vital resource for the fishermen and herders who eke out an existence on its shores...
In the Face of a Receding Lake, Water Conflict at the Ethiopia-Kenya Border
Violent land grabs in Ethiopia’s Lower Omo Valley are displacing tribes and preventing them from cultivating their land, leaving thousands of people hungry and ‘waiting to die’.
As the world prepares to raise awareness of the issues behind poverty and hunger on October 16 (World Food Day), Ethiopia continues to jeopardize the food security and livelihoods of 200,000 of its self-sufficient tribal people.
Tribes such as the Suri, Mursi, Bodi and Kwegu are being violently evicted from their villages as Ethiopia’s government pursues its lucrative plantations project in the Valley.
Depriving tribes of their most valuable agricultural and grazing land, security forces are being used brutally to clear the area to make way for vast cotton, palm oil and sugar cane fields.
Cattle are being confiscated, food stores destroyed, and communities ordered to abandon their homes and move into designated resettlement areas.
On the first day of June, we recieved an alert that the Ethiopian government forces have continued their killing spree aimed at forcing Lower Omo tribespeople out of their land and into the resettlement lands that the government has set aside. This forced resettlement scheme is as a result of the lands of these people having been leased out by the central government to foreign agricultural investments to establish comercial plantations.
There can only be one way to express the pain that these poor people feel about forceful relocation - by publishing the email we recieved unedited.
The Suri, a conglomerate group of the Timaga, Chai, and Balas, are linguistically similar to Mursi and known for lip plates worn by the women. They are cattle herders, as well as cultivators, in their mountains lands to the west of the Omo River.
There have been more recent killings in Suri by the Ethiopian military. Numerous sources have confirmed this. Three Suri had their hands and feet tied and were thrown off the Dima bridge (of Dima town) into the water and drowned. Seven more were found shot along the road. These bodies were left to be eaten by hyenas and vultures.
There have been more reports that others were killed in the bush, but there has been no count of how many. This all is because the Suri are refusing to move into the government resettlement site. The resettlement site has been cleared and demarcated, but no infrastructure work has begun. The Suri are vehemently opposed to resettlement. They say, 'Are we the government's children? If you tells us to move into one place, we just go?'
Last week it was reported that 1500-2000 Ethiopian soldiers were in Suri territory to disarm them. The Suri say this all has to do with the lease of a large section of their land to a Malaysian palm oil plantation.
New Study Reveals Likely Full Impact of Gibe 3 and Irrigation on Lake Turkana & Omo River
A new study conducted by Dr Sean Avery and released by the African Study Centre reveals a much grimmer picture of the impact of the building of Gibe III Dam on the Omo River and associated large scale irrigation-dependent plantations in Ethiopia would have on the Lake Turkana and Lower Omo Basins. The report shows how Gibe's regulation of the flow of the Omo will alter the annual flood regime upon which the agro-pastoralists of the lower Omo depend for their livelihoods and how it will, coupled with the abstraction of Omo water for large-scale irrigation will alter the hydrological inflow patterns to Lake Turkana, directly impacting the ecology of the world's largest lake.
This is the second comprehensive study of the impact of Gibe on the hydrology of Lake Turkana and Lover Omo that the Nairobi-based consultant hydrologist and civil engineer, Dr Sean Avery, has conducted. Dr Avery previously carried out the only comprehensive assessment of the impact of the dam on Lake Turkana and Lower Omo - commissioned by the African Development Bank (AfDB) - but that was before the full scale of planned irrigation-dependent large scale plantation development was known.
A few months after the AFDB report was submitted, the full extent of planned irrigation development in the lower Omo became clearer, with the announcement that the state-run Ethiopian Sugar Corporation would soon begin developing 150,000 hectares of irrigated sugar plantations. It became necessary to conduct a new study to consolidate the previous findings with the new information.
Dr Avery's new report is now available to download from the website of the University of Oxford's African Studies Centre. We have placed the links to the two volume report and an executive summary here. You can also read Dr Avery's first report in the Documents Downloads section of our website.
Download Documents
The River Omo and Lake Turkana Hydrology: Executive Summary and Introduction