Wanzala Bahati Justus *

11/01/2004

Lake Victoria is the world’s second largest freshwater resource. The Lake’s basin is endowed with an abundance of water among other natural resources. This has enabled it to possess an enviable potential for economic development and enhancement of the social well being of communities residing within its basin.

The Lake Victoria basin boasts a population of nearly 30 million, all of whom depend on it for their livelihood, and it traverses the three East African countries of Kenya, UgandaandTanzania. Being the source of the river Nile , the Lake has at least nine riparian countries depending on its waters for purposes ranging from irrigation, industrial to domestic use.

Spread over three provinces, the Kenyan part of the Lake has an area of 47,710 square kilometers.  Though possessing a small share of the Lake ’s surface area,Kenyaprides itself for hosting most of the rivers that flow into the Lake .The major Kenyan rivers that feed Lake Victoria are: Sio, Nzoia, Yala, Kibos, Nyando, Sondu-Miriu, Kuja, Migori, Riana and Mara.

Human Activities Blamed

Demographic trends indicate that the population of the riparian communities residing along the Lake continues to surge at a high rate.

This exponential development of human population in itself is a source of discomfort as far as the conservation of the Lake ’s ecosystem is concerned, as multiple human activities have increasingly resulted in conflict with the environment and effects have conspicuously emerged. The outcome has been the deterioration of water quality and depletion of resources. Squabbles over cross-border fishing between Kenyan fishermen and their counterparts inTanzaniaandUganda, as well as enactment of tough legislations constraining cross-border fishing in the named countries, have their genesis in the dwindling fish stock resulting from the pollution of the Lake . 

Likewise, the emergence of the water hyacinth (a water weed) that has engulfed large sections of the Lake and proved elusive to eradicate despite great efforts to eliminate it, has been linked to pollutants that provide a conducive environment for its growth.

A study conducted by a non-governmental organization, Osienala, or Friends of Lake Victoria, brought to the fore some of the key factors that contribute to the Lake ’s pollution.

Land use practices and activities were discovered to be the leading factors that have impacted negatively on the Lake , causing the deterioration of its waters including that of its river systems.

The report cites farming activities such as the use of pesticides and the clearing of forests to pave way for farmland; and livestock, industrial and domestic effluence, which contain high phosphorous and nitrogen load, as some of the agents causing the choking of Lake Victoria .

The report outlines that the use of synthetic compounds, including fertilizers, compounds the situation.

It is estimated that between 5,000 and 22,000 tons of phosphorous are loaded into the aquatic systems of the Lake Victoria basin annually. Thus, as man tries to exploit the Lake ’s resources to meet his burgeoning, insatiable and dynamic daily needs, so does he create catastrophic repercussions. The high demand for agricultural land and timber has rapidly contributed to the destruction of forests upstream of the rivers flowing into the Lake .

The effect has been increased soil erosion that has caused enormous sedimentation of the Lake and severe floods, which this year wreaked havoc on the parts of the provinces bordering the Lake namely, Nyanza andWestern Provinces .

Extraction of minerals and fish resources has also been influencing the Lake region’s resources.

Addressing participants during a recent seminar on Lake Victoria organized by the East African Legislative Assembly, the Kenyan minister for Water Resources Management and Development, Martha Karua, emphasized the important role played by the Lake .

She explained that the Lake provides food and freshwater for domestic, livestock, agricultural and industrial use including transport, recreation/tourism and biodiversity. The minister pointed out that being a major source of livelihood for approximately 30 million people in the East African region, as well as a source of fish exported to the European Union, the Middle East and Australia, its conservation could not be gainsaid. Karua, however, lamented that it was ironical that, despite being highly endowed with resources, poverty levels among communities residing along the Lake and the accompanying immense amount of environmental degradation was appalling.

The Threat of Municipal Pollution

If Lake Victoria were to perish, then it would have succumbed to a death meted on it by vicious and varied murderers.

There are various major urban centers dotted along the shores of the Lake . The Kenyan side of the Lake hasKisumuCity , which is the largest port on the Lake , andHomabayTown , whileTanzania’s Mwanza, andUganda’s industrial city ofJinjaare also port cities located along the Lake . Municipal pollution is thus a major concern. Effluent from factories and sewage from towns such as Kisumu and Homabay continue to wreak havoc on the Lake .

Oil and grease, dyes from textile industries, breweries’ effluent and sludge, blood from slaughter houses and fish processors, heavy and corrosive metals discharged by factories and pharmaceutical wastes, are some of the harmful elements that find their way into the Lake .

What is more discouraging is the fact that most municipalities located along the Lake lack the capacity to ameliorate the situation. Homabay Town on the Kenyan side of the Lake provides a perfect example. Its sewage treatment plant, which at one time had a state of the art aerator and pump station for sewage treatment, has had to do without them after they broke down due to lack of funds for repair and maintenance.

A senior supervisor at the plant, Joel Oduma, says the plant has been restricted to natural treatment of sewage, which is insufficient in the absence of mechanical backup. The town’s mayor, Peter Agulo, says the cost of repairing the plant is 36 million Kenyan shillings, around US$450,000, which is beyond the capacity of the cash strapped council. His only supplication is that the ministry in charge of local authorities intervenes to bail them out.

Helpless as the mayor seems, raw sewage continues to seep into the Lake unabated, intoxicating it and adversely affecting its fragile ecosystem.

Indeed, the most widespread contamination of water is from disease-bearing human waste usually detected by measuring fecal coliform levels. Human waste poses a health risk for many people who are compelled to drink and wash in untreated water from lakes, rivers and ponds.

Since 1997, the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) and the World Health Organization (WHO) have been collecting water samples on priority water pollutants from selected water monitoring stations under the Global Environment Monitoring Systems (GEMS).

Data from GEMS assessment, which covered 344 stations that included 240 rivers and 61 groundwater stations world-wide, demonstrate the enormous problem of such contamination.

According to the findings, the use of polluted water for drinking and bathing is one of the principal pathways for infection by diseases that kill millions and ail more than a billion people each year.

With a majority of the people living around Lake Victoria lacking access to clean or piped water, water borne diseases such as diarrhoea and typhoid are rampant.

Light at the End of the Tunnel

All is not gloomy, for there is a beacon of hope. A plan byKenya’s Ministry of Water Resources, Management and Development and the French Agency for Overseas Development (AFD) to spend over 37 million US Dollars for the rehabilitation of Kisumu water and sewerage plants will have a positive impact.

The programme will also incorporateHomabay Town and other urban centers along the Kenyan side of the Lake to ensure that they do not threaten the Lake and its rivers systems through discharge of waste.

In a bid to check siltation in the lake caused by soil erosion, the East African Community (a regional organization comprised ofKenya ,UgandaandTanzania) and the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) have entered into agreement to promote agroforestry within the Lake basin in the whole of East Africa .

Signing the document at a regional meeting held at the Kenyan lakeside city ofKisumu, ICRAF Director General Dennis Garrity and the East African Community Secretary General Amanya Mushega said the move will help in curbing excessive soil erosion that has culminated into huge siltation in the Lake , hence causing a major environmental threat to it.

A Great Task Ahead

Despite efforts such as the above and others like the World Bank-fundedLake VictoriaManagement Project (LVEMP), which is currently addressing the problems afflicting the fisher folk and the water hyacinth in the region, still a lot must be done.

This is because the Lake continues to face threats encumbered by lakes elsewhere in the world, like toxic contamination of its waters, sedimentation, loss of plant and animal biodiversity, unsustainable use of its fisheries and unpredictable climatic changes.

Incorporating all the stakeholders ranging from development partners and local communities to industrialists, coupled with relevant legislations by national governments; not forgetting the infusion of regional bodies such as the East African Legislative Assembly, which has shown keen interest in the sustainable development of the Lake , is the only viable way forward.

None other than the words of Stuart Udall, a famous conservationist, sums up the importance of protecting Lake Victoria, which is by all means a heritage for East Africans. “Plans to protect air, water and wildlife are in fact plans to protect man.”

Sources:

OSIENALA (Friends of Lake Victoria ) Bulletin Issue No. 14, October 2002

Field interviews By Justus Bahati Wanzala

* Wanzala Bahati Justus is a freelance journalist based in Nairobi, Kenya . Your emails will be forwarded to him by contacting the editor at: ScienceTech@islam-online.net. 

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