Haller Park
In 1959, Dr. Rene Haller was employed by the Bamburi Cement Company to produce food for its workers using its land. In 1970, he persuaded them to extend his remit to rehabilitate the cement quarries along the Mombasa coastline which had been left barren by years of excavation. This was a formidable task. The sun-baked quarry floors were hard as rock, air temperatures were up to 40 and the water was saline. Dr. Haller tried 26 species but only the casuarina tree would grow in such severe conditions, as it's leaves are bunched together like pine needles, protecting it from losing moisture through evaporation. Ten months into the project, Dr Haller noticed the early seedlings had started to wither. Undeterred, he examined the dense hair roots of healthy casuarinas growing wild in the sand dunes and discovered they contained a cocktail of micro-organisms. After he introduced these into the quarry, the seedlings began to flourish. In order to decompose the mass of needles, Dr. Haller then introduced local “red legged” millipedes who ate the needles, turning them into humus, and the first layer of soil was formed. Over 1 million trees were planted in the quarry -- subsequently renamed Haller Park -- and only a decade later there existed a new balanced micro-climate. The casuarinas trees were thinned out and native species were introduced, which attracted many insects, butterflies and birds to the quarries. Much of the 7 square kilometer Bamburi site has been transformed from an infertile and dusty landscape to an ecological haven. The once barren quarries are now a combination of lakes, wetlands and savannah grasslands with walking and cycling trails. Nearly 100,000 visitors come to the Nature Park and Wildlife Sanctuary which hosts over 30 species from The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Adhering to his believe that economy and ecology needed to be in balance, Rene Haller went on to create over 47 income-producing ventures on the land which produced the capital required for further investment. These ranged from fish and crocodile farming to commercial tree nurseries, honey production, biogas from the fish faecal matter and many others..