DARAJA LA KWENDA KWETU NTWARA.....

BENJAMIN WILLIAM MKAPA BRIDGE,RUFIJI TANZANIA. Unsurprisingly, the delta's natural wealth has attracted the gaze of big industry, and the area is coming under increasing pressure from logging and fishing companies, something that the new $25 million Benjamin Mkapa Bridge over the Rufiji is likely to facilitate. The discovery of oil reserves north of the river also raises cause for concern. The greatest threat to the delta's environment came in the 1990s, however, when an Irish businessman proposed a $200 million prawn farm, the world's largest, which would have destroyed 1100 square kilometres of mangrove forest, degraded and polluted the land and water supply on which 33,000 villagers depend, and displaced 6000 people. Despite the condemnation of the National Environmental Management Council, the government approved the project, prompting an international outcry. Local people took the company to the High Court and, after a four-year battle, the project was abandoned in 2001, to the jubilation of the villagers and environmentalists alike. BENJAMIN WILLIAM MKAPA BRIDGE,RUFIJI TANZANIA