Kenyan Court Blocks Coal Plant Threatening UNESCO Heritage Site

A Kenyan court has delivered a decisive victory for environmental activists by permanently blocking a massive coal power plant that threatened one of the country’s most pristine ecosystems. The Environment and Land Court upheld a 2019 decision revoking the environmental license for the controversial 1,050-megawatt Lamu coal plant, ending nearly a decade of legal battles.

Justice Francis Njoroge dismissed the appeal from Amu Power Company, citing fundamental flaws in the project’s environmental assessment and insufficient public consultation. The proposed plant would have been built on Kenya’s Lamu archipelago, home to a UNESCO World Heritage Site featuring critical mangrove forests, seagrass beds, and coral reefs that support both local fisheries and tourism.

The project faced fierce opposition since its 2016 approval from a coalition of 40 civil society groups called Save Lamu and the regional deCOALonize campaign. Environmental groups successfully argued that the impact assessment ignored serious health and biodiversity risks while failing to properly engage affected communities. In 2019, Kenya’s National Environmental Tribunal memorably declared that “public participation is the oxygen that gives life to an environmental impact assessment.”

“This marks the end of an almost decade-long struggle,” said Omar Elmawi, a lawyer with the deCOALonize campaign. The ruling represents a significant win for grassroots environmental advocacy and sets an important precedent for protecting sensitive ecosystems from industrial development across East Africa.