Environmentalists in the region have sighed with relief after the East African Court of Justice (EACJ) stopped Tanzania from building a major highway across the Serengeti National Park. The park is the jewel in East Africa’s tourism crown and has been recognised as one the new Seven Wonders of the World due to the spectacle of the annual wildebeest migration.The park is known as Maasai Mara on the Kenyan side and is shared by the two East African Community countries. But it has proved to be a magnet for tourists for the entire region. The Tanzanian attorney general had raised questions over the authority of the EACJ to hear the case which was filed by a Nairobi-based non-governmental organisation in December 2010 against the road project across the northern fringes of the park.The case was filed by the African Network for Animal Welfare (Anaw) through Kanchory and Co Advocates of Nairobi and was set to be heard at the First Instance Division of EACJ before Tanzania raised its objection last year. Dar es Salaam had argued that the court had no jurisdiction to hear the case under Article 27 of the EAC Treaty on grounds that it was a matter of a sovereign nature, not falling under the EAC protocols.Anaw had gone to the regional court seeking to stop the project on the grounds that it would do considerable damage to the ecosystem and damage the tourism industry.Dar es Salaam was hell-bent on building the highway arguing that it would open up the region and spur development. The Tanzanian government then changed tact and argued the matter was outside the authority of the court and should be handled by the municipal courts in Dar es Salaam. The matter then went to the EACJ’s appellate division it ruled that the court has full jurisdiction to hear the case because the park was part of the transnational ecosystem straddling Kenya and Tanzania.Reading the ruling Justice James Ogola struck a major blow for conservation when he ruled that matters touching on the environment cut across nation states and were included in the EAC Treaty. “The court has jurisdiction to hear environment disputes which directly affect the ecosystem and touch on the sustainable utilisation of the natural resources, including terrestrial ecosystems,” he said.The AG further argued in the preliminary objection that any legal dispute on the Serengeti National Park should be handled by the country’s courts as the park was within Tanzania’s borders and managed locally.But Justice Ogolla upheld the dismissal of the objection on grounds that the court not only has jurisdiction on the case but also on grounds that the objections filed were not proper.
