A NATURAL BEAUTY

By Wanyua Mary

Invasive species at Lake Naivasha hindering boat rides.

Lake Naivasha is a popular tourism destination in Kenya which supports a thriving floriculture industry, the 3^rd largest contributor to the foreign earnings, providing employment for over 30,000 people. The lake Naivasha basin also has a further 500,000 people made up mainly of small scale farmers in the upper catchments and pastoralists communities downstream on the southern end of the lake.

The name Naivasha comes from a Masaai name Nai’posha meaning rough waters due to the sudden storms that can arise at times. Lake Naivasha is the highest of the Great Rift Valley lakes lying about 1880 meters above sea level.

Unlike many fresh water lakes, Lake Naivasha has no visible outlet; the explanation is that there are underground seepages maintaining the movement of fresh water.

There are two smaller lakes in the vicinity of the lake namely lake Oloiden and lake Sonachi. Lake Naivasha has become a recreational center for Kenyan there is a flourishing yatch club and many private cabin cruisers and boats for fishing. All the land surrounding the lake is in private hands, so access to the water has to be through the grounds of the hotels on the South -East shores.

The geomorhological formation of the rift valley is unique in the lakes basin. The fault lines provide characteristic areas of the recharge into the underground aquifer and some of the recharged water being in close proximity with the earth’s core, are heated sprouting out with the right moisture that is trapped, dried and compressed to turn electricity turbines at the geothermal reservoir at Olkaria

The steam jets found in the lake Naivasha basin are different from those found in other part of the country currently making the Naivasha basin the only sustainable geothermal station in the country. The steam jets have been identified as being linked to the underground aquifers recharged by the lake and rainfall in the catchment forests; signifying the need to conserve the entire basin and its functions if we want to sustain the power supply.

The natural resources (land, forest, wildlife, fisheries and water) found in the lake Naivasha basin are a foundation for socio-economic development in the region. However, access to these valued resources is imbalanced favoring the government and a few moneyed interest groups mostly at the expense of the rural poor majority.

Most of the land around the lake is privately owned while some land has been gazetted as conservation areas and riparian lands under the custodian of the various people whose land is continuum with the riparian zones. Hence, there constant diverse conflicts between riparian land owners and large scale flower farmers, fishermen, local communities, tourist ventures, and pastoralists over access to the lake.

Furthermore, conflicts exist between upstream and downstream communities over access to water resources and management of land that affects the quality and quantity of water arriving downstream. Attempt have been made to reduce this tensions  through meaningful trade-offs and dialogue among the affected parties which are achieved through rural poor capacity building which is one of the objectives of the World Wide Fund for nature and Lake Naivasha Water Resource Users Association (LANAWRUA) through the PES program.

The greatest challenge to the WWF Naivasha and LANAWRUA is to improve the welfare of the poor living in the lake Naivasha catchment whilst ensuring the use of the environment and natural resources is sustainable. Reducing poverty and protecting the environment in the Naivasha landscape will provide enduring benefits to all the people in the basin, the country and the world now and in the future.