Corruption and greed will turn wild Kenya into a sad cabbage patch

A few years ago I went to the Tana River delta in Kenya. It was the most mind-blowingly beautiful wilderness I've ever seen, with Lions walking along the miles of untouched beach and crocs, hippos, storks and monkeys sharing the river and jungle.

So it was very upsetting to discover recently that the Kenyan government has agreed to lease the whole area to the Qatari government to turn it into a giant vegetable patch. It's another saddening example of a poor country with "easily swayed" politicians pimping out its natural resources for the sake of a quick cash injection from an equally corrupt country with barrel loads of oil money, infertile soil and dubious moral scruples.

The deal, if it is allowed to go through, will turn an area of global natural importance with a biodiversity of millions of animal and plant species, into a miles of rice, broccoli and sprouts as far as the eye can see. And there is no going back from that.

Just to rub salt in the wounds, the Kenyan government has also agreed to lease the sand dunes and bird-filled marshes at the mouth of the Tana river to the land-locked Ethiopians to turn it into a huge port so that they can export all the vegetables the wealthy few are selling to other rich middle eastern states whilst their own people regularly suffer famines.

What can we do? Well, this story is not very widely known, so we can start by spreading the word.