Kenya: Key Lakes Succumb to Human Activities
The lake was once a water source for over 500 elephants and over 10 species of other mammals from the adjacent Rimoi Game Reserve. Other animals found around the lake are impalas, bushbucks, warthogs, leopards, buffaloes and an endangered mammal called funkleen.
However, Chemitai says that the number of tourists visiting Rimoi has reduced over the years because of the decreasing numbers of wild animals. And those wild animals that remain have retreated as cows have taken over the area for grazing.
Poaching is another challenge here.
“Poachers enter into the reserve to hunt. Last year we lost many animals to poachers and we are disadvantaged because we lack enough game rangers,” says Chemitai.
Chemitai said the County Council of Baringo, the local authority mandated to control human settlement, was partly to blame as it was reluctant to prevent people from intruding onto the riparian land.
“We are asking people who have encroached into the lake to move out. The County Council of Baringo has failed to control settlement and prevent illegal occupation in the riparian land,” Chemitai told IPS.
Albert Lagat, an environmental conservationist and the head of Esageri Sabatia Environmental Organization, an NGO that plants trees in deforested catchments, says urgent action needs to be taken to save Lake Kamnarok.
He notes that the Ketipborok, Cheplogoi, Oiwo and Chelabei Rivers that flow into Lake Kamnarok have either dried up completely or become seasonal following the destruction of their sources.
“The lake had plenty of water sometime back. Urgent measures like reforesting the forests with indigenous trees, sensitizing people to protect the lake and to move out of the land near the lake should be taken,” says Lagat.
Posted by admin
on Feb 11 2012. Filed under Environment.
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