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Kenya: Experts Warn of Food Crisis
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The East African Standard (Nairobi)
17 March 2008
Posted to the web 17 March 2008
Harold Ayodo
Nairobi
Scientists have warned of a food shortage and increased poverty due to continuous environmental degradation.
The experts from East Africa, at a regional seminar in Mwanza, Tanzania, said that massive dilapidation of the environment could increase poverty to more than 65 per cent.
They said degradation of nature had led to the increase of water borne diseases such as cholera and typhoid among riparian communities (living along or near river banks).
Experts who presented research papers at the workshop said massive land erosion is another threat to food security.
Mwanza Regional Commissioner, Dr James Msekela, said illegal human activities are a threat to natural resources.
"People bathe in rivers and use excess fertilisers that flow into Lake Victoria. Resource depletion by illegal logging is increasing poverty and disease," Msekela said.
Mara River Basin Management Project Manager, Mr Joseph Terer, said destruction of natural resources was alarming.
"Studies show that the poverty levels of riparian communities in Kenya and Tanzania would shoot from the current 65 per cent in the next two years," Terer said.
The experts deplored degradation of the Mau Forest, which they said is the main catchment of Mara River, that originates from the Nopuyopu Swamp.
"Loggers at Mau Forest take home more than 80 per cent of the cost of indigenous trees they fell. This costs governments colossal amounts of money annually," Terer said.
The environmentalists cited studies that showed municipalities in East Africa were the worst lake polluters. They discharge untreated sewers into the resource.
They estimated that the population of the Mara Basin from Molo to Musoma in Tanzania would more than double by 2022.
"The population of the Basin from Molo in Kenya to Musoma grows by 2.8 per cent annually it stood at 1.1 million in 2002," Terer said.
Approximately 33 million members of riparian communities depend on Lake Victoria directly for their livelihood in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.
"There is massive soil erosion by rivers in the Nile Basin that drain into Lake Victoria, which is the undoing of several riparian communities," Terer said.
Dr Philip Raburu of the Kenya Nile Basin Discourse Forum said the drying up of some of the rivers that feed Lake Victoria and River Nile is a concern.
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"Communities that live along water bodies that flow into the second largest fresh water lake in the world have no fertile land to cultivate due to soil erosions," Raburu said.
Mrs Asia Kapande, of the Tanzania Nile Basin Discourse Forum, called on governments in East Africa to ensure environmental management measures alleviate poverty.
"Poverty and disease are on the increase following our actions, which can be contained through political goodwill," Kapande said.
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