A Chinese Company Is Building A Railway Through Nairobi’s National Wildlife Sanctuary

A Chinese-funded multi-billion dollar rail link between Kenya’s capital and the port city of Mombasa will cut through Nairobi’s national park for wildlife, according to officials.

After months of back and forth, officials agreed late last week to allow 11km of track to pass through Nairobi National Park, a 117 square kilometer (45 square-mile) swathe of land in the south of the city, home to zebras, giraffes, leopards, cheetahs, lions and other animals. Parts of the track will be elevated and walled off, while an underpass will be built for animals and tourists. Fencing will be built to protect animals from the railway, believed to be the country’s largest infrastructure project since independence.

“I think it’s a pragmatic alternative, which this country needs,” said Richard Leakey, the renowned conservationist who is chairman of the Kenyan Wildlife Service. The alternative route for the $13.8 billion standard gauge railway (better known as just SGR) being built by the state-owned China Road and Bridge Corporation…