Tanzania. The lesser flamingo has been classified as Near Threatened by the IUCN Red List, because it has seen ‘moderately rapid reductions’ in its population. The Tanzania government recently resurrected the plan to mine in Lake Natron. Maybe government officials are right in assuming that if all precautions are taken they can mine at Lake Natron without disturbing the flamingos. However, if they are wrong—and some say that scenario is more likely—then the surreal spectacle of hundreds of thousands of pink birds filling the lakes of the Great Rift Valley could for our great grand children seem as remote and lost as the idea of a million passenger pigeons blotting out the sun.