The tree was due to make way for a highway
Credit: Luis Tato/AFP
A giant 100-year-old fig tree in Kenya’s capital Nairobi will be preserved following an outcry by environmentalists against its removal to make way for a Chinese-funded highway.
Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta has issued a decree to protect the sacred, four-story high tree, describing it as a "beacon of Kenya’s cultural and ecological heritage."
The tree has become the symbol of a battle waged in many countries between infrastructure development and the protection of nature. It was due to be uprooted and moved to make way for the Nairobi Expressway, a four-lane highway funded and built by China.
"Activism works! We did it! We’ll keep doing it for all green spaces!" tweeted Elizabeth Wathuti, a head of campaigns at the Waangari Mathai Foundation, and one of the activists who fought to save the tree.
The tree has become a local icon
Credit: Luis Tato/AFP
Environmentalists had organised protests under the tree where they brandished posters with messages ranging from "Don’t destroy nature," to "Nairobi city needs more green spaces!"
The fig tree is considered sacred by Kikuyu people, the largest ethnic group in Kenya.
Nairobi is known as the "green city in the sun," and is bordered by forests and protected national parks on all sides. But the past decades have seen infrastructure projects flourish.
In 2018, demonstrators protested against a Chinese-built railway being built inside Nairobi National Park, which they said threatened its wildlife including lions, giraffes and zebras. The project went ahead.
"In the past few years we’ve fought a number of battles against construction, this is just one of them," Ms Wathuti told The Telegraph. "We’ve been fighting to have an inclusive development that is also sustainable. When we’re putting up infrastructure or roads we don’t have to sacrifice green spaces or trees."
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