China Builds The Biggest Port In Africa – not good news for Africa’s iconic species

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China is investing $10 billion to build a new port at Bagamoyo (northwest of Dar es Salaam) and improve infrastructure related to the port improvement. This will make it possible to greatly increase trade. This mainly consists of shipping raw materials to China(elephant ivory, rhino horn?) and bringing Chinese manufactured goods in. Among the imports will be most of the components for the ports and Chinese mines and other infrastructure projects in the region. The new port will be able to handle 20 million cargo containers a year. The current port facilities at Dar es Salaam can only handle 800,000 containers a year. New roads and railroads will connect to existing road and railroad networks, and these will also undergo upgrades. This will make Tanzania the main port for raw materials coming out of and goods going into Malawi, Zambia, Congo, Burundi, Rwanda, and Uganda. This makes Tanzania a major East African shipping destination because Bagamoyo will become the largest port in Africa and one of the biggest in the region (which includes the Persian Gulf). Although China made it clear that these facilities will not be used by the Chinese Navy, Chinese firms will run (as well as build) the facilities,