Kenya’s construction boom runs into biodiversity losses

Written by Otiato Guguyu

One of the most striking stories of my childhood was the story of the noisy hornbill. Maybe because of its structure of rural folklore or the graphics that accompanied it in that childhood textbook.

This story of the bird with the stacked up beak that could not shut up and a ladybird that went warning the banana, the snail, the mushrooms that the birds noise, would bring misfortune upon the forest.

“Hornbill’s problems are Hornbill’s problems. It’s none of our business.” They all said in turn, until misfortune did finally come. One day, a hunter whose traps had not caught any game heard the Hornbill and followed the noise. He shot it off the tree. The hornbill fell on an ant hill where there were mushrooms. And the hunter saw the mushrooms and took them to eat them with the Hornbill. He found a Snail next to the mushrooms and took it as well to make a good soup. Since he had no bag to carry all what he had gathered, he cut a banana tree and took its leaves to package his hunt, and a liana to tie them with.

As a child I would have imagined, something could have been done about the attitudes of the lady bird, the fluttering banana fronds and spores of mycelium, but I paid very little attention to the misfortune, the man, who I bore more resemblance to in the story than the other objects imagined in there.

I had to recall this story when lately two black-and-white-casqued hornbills have been spotted hanging off the ledges of high-rise Nairobi, Parkland balconies after their nests were cut down by a developer in the area.

I am afraid of heights and they looked like I would have looked like on that thin ledge; struggling to align the stack of their large beaks against glass while maintaining a decent position without naturally toppling over.

As Kenya’s bursting construction market booms towards Kes1.02 trillion on the anticipated 7.5 percent annual growth, according to the Kenya Construction Industry Databook Series, the growth is harming crucial biodiversity systems.

Structurally and environmentally unsound

Nairobi, also known as the concrete jungle is the wild west of this construction boom that has often created dangerous housing units, sometimes unsound which has seen several cases of building collapses.

Construction professionals, including architects, engineers and urban planners say buildings are rising without proper checks and too many are failing to meet safety standards. Political interference, long approval delays and lax regulations have created an environment where short-term gains are taking precedence over long-term safety

And it is not just structural problems, illegal buildings are encroaching on riparian zones and green spaces, creating animal stress and unleashing climate risks like flooding.

Gentrification of communities

The Parklands community quickly caught up with the sightings of the huge black birds that once perched on a balcony of a resident and were spotted on various locations across the community.

They were quickly tracking the birds and typically Kenyan dropping random facts about hornbills, like the fact that mother locks herself a tree hollow for up to six months to protect her eggs and chicks and her partner becomes the sole provider for the whole family, and that they couple up for life.

The blame was quickly lay on developers in the area, although the residents says they have been vigilant in opposing bringing down trees to make room for new high-rise buildings.

These residential pressure groups are finding it harder to enforce their private laws against the explosion of real estate developments to accommodate the bustling city. Nairobi is also fracturing along the racial containments and legacy of colonial British demarcations which means less homogenous communities are flooding the once exclusive areas of the city.

These new builders who are less attached to the histories of the pristine landscapes that reached out from City Park forests into Nairobi residential areas are mauling them down, to maximize for space and value of the land.

Wrong Key to economic recovery?

Construction has taken over the imagination of Kenyan policymakers as one of the key areas to lift the economy out of a slump that has hurt growth across almost all sectors of the economy.

Most businesses in key sectors, including agriculture, manufacturing, construction, wholesale, and retail, reported a sustained slump in sales for the greater part of2024 according to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS), due to cash flow challenges as firms and households cut back on expenditures.

However, state efforts are reversing the slump. The Government has raided billions of Housing Levy from paychecks and channeled them to build affordable housing to help meet the 250,000 annual demand and a housing deficit of 2 million units and to offer market incentives for mortgage purchase to encourage lower income families to own a home.

Construction is also expected to pick up with the warming up of Kenya relations with china after President William Ruto recently visited Beijing. In a recent visit he signed various deals with his Chinese counterpart President Xi Jing ping on cooperation between the two countries is premised on mutual interests, investment, infrastructure construction, science and technology, education, culture and tourism.

China a key bilateral lender to the country who financed the Standard Gauge Railway dropped off during US President Joe Biden’s rule that sought closer ties with Nairobi at the expense of Beijing. Change of guard in Washington to President Donald Trump has seen Kenyan loose the American influence and return to China for deals.