Friends of Oloolua Forest win round one in war with radioactive waste facility

An aerial picture taken with a drone shows the Oloolua Forest near Nairobi. [Reuters]

It is 5pm, a time when Oloolua Primary School pupils happily fill the tarmac road on their way home.

Some make the road a makeshift playing field with paper balls while others chase after each other.

They are perhaps oblivious to their surroundings other than a massive forest that is around 1,650 acres.

Some 400 metres away from their school is the Kenya Nuclear Regulatory Authority’s (KNRA) National Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) Centre.

The situation is different as the place is dead silent from the first gate, close to the road, to the second one which is manned by a police officer.

Save for two persons who are repairing the first gate, it appears that no one goes in if not authorised.

Concrete paving blocks make a path from the first gate but from the bushes, and trees around it, one would guess right that it was created out of the forest.

There is a river, then a house to the left, and now a gate and barriers to the building that is at the heart of an environment case before the High Court.

On Wednesday, Justice David Mwangi ordered that KNRA should cease processing or disposing nuclear waste in the facility inside the forest.

“No amount of financial compensation can restore the forest if destroyed. Its survival is critical for the forest ecosystem in the interest of the current and future generations,” said Justice Mwangi.

The judge also issued orders stopping any destruction or felling trees to pave the way for construction.

He continued: “We are living in perilous times; a time of monumental environmental challenges, climate change biodiversity loss amongst other challenges. From the allegations in the plaintiff’s application and the precautionary principle, my finding is that the balance of convenience is in favour of the issuance of the orders sought pending the hearing and determination of the main suit.”

At the entrance, it is indicated that the place is a radiation area.

Lush vegetation

The place is secluded and surrounded by dense and lush vegetation. Some of the indigenous trees that you will find include mihugu (silver oak) and mitamaiyu (brown olive trees).

Nevertheless, we establish that with as low as Sh10,000, we can have radioactive material brought to the place. Some of the clients are hospitals in Nairobi.

Oloolua is on the outskirts of Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, and is a budding small town that neighbours the affluent Karen area. The forest is part of the larger Ngong forest ecology and was gazetted in 1941 and declared a central forest on May 20, 1974.

It was split to pave the road connecting Embulbul and Gataka and the second phase of the standard gauge railway.

For a first-timer, you cannot miss the many footpaths that cut into the forest but for anyone who wants to take a walk, legally, he or she has to part with between Sh100 for Kenyans and Sh50 for children under the age of 13.

Monkeys, birds, caves, trails, the Mbagathi River that flows through and waterfalls are just but among the numerous gifts that nature has for the eyes.

In court, Friends of Oloolua and Public Interest Litigation and Advocacy for the Environment (PILAE) equated the Oloolua saga to the proverbial story of the camel praying to be allowed to put its head inside a tent only to end up kicking the owner out. In this case, the forest is the tent, the government is the camel and Kenyans are the owners.

According to them, the government allocated a third of the forest, approximately 450.26 acres to the Kenya National Museum.

It was alleged that the reason behind this was to have the Institute of Primate Research, now known as Kenya Institute of Primate Research (KIPRE), study monkeys.

Today, KIPRE is under the Ministry of Health and its website indicates it does biomedical research, laboratory animal science, and conservation biology. IPS was started by paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey.

He was the father of conservationist and politician Richard Leakey who was at one point a director of the museum. The younger Leakey died in 2022.

In court, Oloolua’s friends’ and PILAE's lawyer Adrian Ojiambo argued that IPR initially entered the forest as a godparent but today, the forest bleeds as it soaks tons of radioactive waste.

He stated the museum was allocated a lot of land but it had nothing meaningful to do with it.

According to him, it rented the nuclear agency 12 acres. There is also a conference hall which it offers to the public at a fee.

Ojiambo argued that the museum did not need all that land to study monkeys nor was the public made aware of such a move. He said the allocation masked brazen land-grabbing and destruction of the forest to pave the way for construction.

He argued that since the museum had gone against part of the bargain, the land should revert to the public.

He argued that whatever is happening in the forest offends the laws on forests and lands.

“Primate research or the study of monkeys did not require the allocation of 450.26 acres or any land in Oloolua Forest… The proper functions of the first defendant are set out in Section 4 of the National Museums and Heritage Act no. 6 of 2006. The activities undertaken by the first respondent in the Oloolua Forest are not within its statutory obligations,” argued Ojiambo.

The court heard that a radioactive facility operated by the nuclear agency is a time bomb that would not only affect animals and birds but also people who visit and those beyond the forest.

He claimed that seepage of radioactive wastewater discharged from flushing and cleaning activities contaminated the underground water sources.

The lawyer argued that burning substances within the facility releases gases that will ultimately affect those who live around the area.

In the meantime, Justice Mwangi heard that the construction of walls and conference center disrupted the animals’ traditional migratory paths.

“To mitigate the risk of escaping radiation, the second defendant has resorted to felling trees, digging, trenching, walling, constructing buildings, and developing masonry walls to contain radiation risks. These acts are incompatible with the second defendant’s presence in the forest and the participatory forest management plan adopted for the Oloolua Forest,” said Ojiambo.

He stated that Oloolua remains protected under the Forest Conservation and Management Act No. 34 of 2016, hence it is not available for lease or allocation.

Friends of Oloolua and PILAE now blame the National Lands Commission and physical and land use planning Director General for failing to stop a growing appetite for illegal allocation of Oloolua Forest.

“Unless the defendants are restrained, they will continue with the prohibited activities. They may erase the forest from the face of the earth to the detriment of plaintiffs, the public, and future generations,” he said.

In their supporting affidavit, Tasmin Corcoran and Akshay Vishwanath told the court that Oloolua is a carbon sink for Nairobi and a water catchment area for Embakasi, Kitengela, Stony Athi and Kiboko Rivers. They stated that they learned of increased activities in the forest in May and raised concern with NLC which, they said, turned a deaf ear.

“The second defendant has been ferrying nuclear and radioactive waste into the forest where it purports to process and manage it to the detriment of the forest and the public,” they claimed.