Is one of Kenya's largest and most important freshwater wetland systems with a significant local community of cattle herders and others dependent on it and having been so for centuries.

As a wildlife refuge it is particularly important site for thousands of breeding birds as well as a feeding site many more - with 15,000 water birds of 69 species counted on just one day in January 2007 and covering only a small proportion (c.15%) of the whole delta. There is a major heronry in the delta, the only one for some 100s of kms, it is a highly important breeding site for fish and there are still elephant, lion, quite a lot of plains game and probably 800+ hippo in the delta (a count of 400 together in just one pool was made in 2006).

The Tana Delta is under serious threat of destruction from a proposed sugar plantation development that will cover an area of 33,000ha (80,000acres - about the same size as Amboseli National Park) and will have massive environmental and social impacts on the area. The plantations will stretch right into the heart of the main wetland area and not be restricted to the bush area to the north.

It will be a national natural disaster if this development is allowed to go ahead the way it is currently planned. The local community living in the delta, represented by the Lower Tana River Delta Conservation Trust, are fighting it hard and need all the support they can get.

M.Smith