[CPProt.net] Kenya: Lamu's cultural heritage under siege

[MSN CPPnet (Ton Cremers)]

Lamu's cultural heritage under siege 

Story by MWANGI GITHAHU 
Publication Date: 9/25/2005  

The future of Lamu Island as a Unesco designated World Heritage Site could
suddenly go up in flames if three privately owned fuel stores are not
relocated from the island's built-up sea front area. 

These fears were expressed by a cross-section of interest groups including
local residents, traders, Lamu County Council officials, the provincial
administration and officials at the National Museums of Kenya. 

 
The sea-front bursts into action during a past Lamu cultural festival. In
the annual event, boat riding is part of the activities. Photo/File .  

In December 2001, Unesco (United Nations Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organisation) granted Lamu's Old Town World Heritage status citing
the fact that the town had retained traditional attributes and functions for
nearly 1,000 years.  

This convention notes that cultural and natural heritage are increasingly
under the threat of destruction, not only from natural causes of decay, but
also from the rapidly changing socio-economic conditions. 

Lamu's addition to the World Heritage list was meant to help keep the
island's cultural and religious values intact as it interacts with
modernity, and protect it against risks such as fires or the building of
hotels near the historic areas of the town. 

There are a number of firms, dealing in the fuel business in the town.
According to residents and the administration, the fuel traders have stored
their supplies in the built up area of the town for very many years and had
been allowed to get away with it. This, despite the fear that the fuel
stores could easily catch fire and the fact that the island is not well
equipped to handle such incidents should they arise. 

Basically, were Lamu town's old buildings to be destroyed by a fire, there
would be no justification to warrant the retention of the World Heritage
Site status. 

Under the Unesco programme, monuments include architectural works, elements
of structures of an archaeological nature and groups of buildings which
because of architecture, homogeneity or place in the landscape are of
outstanding universal value from the point of art, history or science. 

According to the Lamu District Commissioner, Mr Kutswa Olaka, while two of
the firms seem willing to comply with the order to relocate, one of the
organisations has taken the authorities to court, fighting the planned
relocation. 

The DC told the Sunday Nation that the authorities would, however, not be
deterred from their plans to relocate the fuel stores to a "less dangerous
area" in line with the Petroleum Act. 

Speaking in Lamu recently, traders and area residents expressed fear that
the fuel depots were a time-bomb waiting to explode. 

Already there have been scaring incidents. In late April this year, one of
the premises storing fuel, which supplies the boat industry on the island,
caught fire.  

Though the fire was quickly put out, residents called for a meeting with the
DC and made it clear that they wanted the authorities to get rid of the
potential fire hazard. 

Officials at the Lamu Fort Museum, who are entrusted with the management of
affairs touching on the Lamu World Heritage status, told the Sunday Nation
the matter of the fuel godowns had been discussed with the authorities many
times over the years but no decisive action had so far been taken. 

Lamu's susceptibility to fire is not a new phenomenon. In 2003, a raging
fire on the eve of the Lamu Cultural Festival, the world's biggest
celebration of Swahili culture, destroyed three hotels and a restaurant,
occasioning damage of property estimated at more than Sh33 million. Lamu,
the oldest and best preserved Swahili settlement in East Africa, has been
continuously inhabited for almost 1,000 years.  

Historically, the town was first inhabited by the local Bantus but soon
became a regular port of call for seamen docking from the Arabian Peninsula,
the Persian Gulf and the Far East.  

>From 1506 to 1698 the island was ruled by the Portuguese. The settlement
then became an Omani protectorate and eventually fell under British
domination until it became part of Kenya at independence in 1963. 
  
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