Land Grab Right on The Green Belt?

Spring Valley Nairobi – An area that was supposedly protected by the Green Belt Movement is now being built up by a developer. The Green Belt Movement is the organization founded by the venerable Prof. Wangari Maathai, a nobel laureate and actually a heroine of mine. I ask about this because there are more questions than I have answers, when I drove by this area in late 2006 and late 2007 my impression was that the whole valley around the signboard was part of the Green Belt Movement protected area. At the time the whole place just had trees and a few vegetable gardens. Am I mistaken?

Land grabbed or not?

The sign board is now an exercise in utter irony

Land grabbed or not?

Fence around the property

Land grabbed or not?

view from the road

Land grabbed or not?

view from the side.
All pics taken June 28th 2009.

Anyone with more info, please comment.

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Kenya Data Networks Opts for Solar Energy

About KDN: It is one of the first companies to invest in network infrastructure in Kenya, laying fibre before the Seacom cable arrived. It provides internet services to businesses and individuals. Well their Butterfly wifi initiative was flaky at times, but quite bold at the time (early 2008). I wonder how the service is stacking up against competition from the likes of Yu, Safaricom 3G etc?

Via Kenya Capital Investment Group

Kenya Data Networks, has opted to solve their energy problems by tapping the power of the sun. The KDN solar power plant generates 10MW of power, enough to buffer it from fluctuations in the grid which result in frequent brown outs. Last year, the cost of electricity increased by over 51% so its not only good for the environment, but I am sure it makes a whole lot of sense for the balance sheet of KDN. From the video they are already saving 50% on their electricity bill, I think this is a good example to other companies that they too can embrace renewable energy. Now if only Kengen could make plans to create a smart grid that allows netmetering…

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