Lake Naivasha will lose more than 100,000 acres if the government proceeds with a contentious plan to redraw its boundaries.
The proposed move, which has been condemned by conservation lobbies and the National Environment Management Authority, significantly reduces the riparian land all around the lake.
The Water Resources Authority quietly redrew the lake's boundaries late last year, but the new order has not been gazetted.
WRA chief executive Mohammed Shurie says when the draft Lake Naivasha Catchment Area Protection Order 2018 is gazetted, it will revoke the 2012 order and lower the lake's official boundaries.
"Lake Naivasha Catchment Protection Guidelines shall come into effect immediately upon publication of this Order in the Kenya Gazette and shall be the basis for conservation of the water
resources within the Lake Naivasha catchment area," Shurie says in the notice.
The 2012 order upheld the riparian land at 1,892m above sea level, which WRA now plans to cut to 1,888 metres above sea level.
MOVE TERMED ‘ILLEGAL’
Environmentalists have warned the proposed 2018 order is illegal. It could also see the lake lose its global position as a Ramsar site and an Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA), which makes it globally important for the conservation of birds.
A Ramsar site is a wetland of international importance under the Ramsar Convention, a treaty established in 1971 by Unesco. Kenya has six Ramsar sites.
Nema says WRA did not conduct an Environmental Impact Assessment to determine the impact of the boundary reduction as required by the law.
The Environmental Act requires that any such activity, especially around a lake, should undergo an EIA before it’s validated and submitted to them for public participation, a process WRA ignored.
Nema Nakuru director Antony Saisi says WRA must table convincing reasons for the proposal and then collect views from the public.
“Laws are to be followed. If WRA moves ahead with the process without doing an environmental assessment, then as authority that has been given the mandate of conservation, we will issue an order to prevent the validation of the reduction of the riparian land,” Saisi says.
Saisi also notes that reducing the riparian could destroy the biodiversity.
Local environmental groups have now petitioned Water CS Simon Chelugui to stop the WRA move.
“Our concern is that the proposed review will bring about negative impacts affecting the natural breeding for fish, birds and wildlife, and reduce wildlife habitat for flora and fauna, leading to an increase in human-wildlife conflict,” says Paul Ruoya, chairman of the Naivasha Network Association, a conservation lobby.
“Most importantly is that the reduced riparian buffers will result in soil erosion, pollution and siltation of the lake.”
Illegal structures on Lake Naivasha /MURIMI GITARI
LANDOWNERS FAULTED
Ruoya says Shurie's proposal is illegal because there was no public participation, as required by law.
"The authority shall place signboards and beacons in or near the water resource or in appropriate public places frequented by water users and at the authority’s offices to display up-to-date information about the condition of the water resources of the Lake Naivasha Protected Area," Shurie said.
Ruoya says the move amounts to a land-grab and is influenced by landowners around the lake, who want to want to add more land from the lake into what they already own.
“The government is demolishing buildings put up on riparian land in Nairobi, but what is happening here in Naivasha is totally different,” he says.
“Law enforcers have neglected their work for there is no action that has been taken on these investors, who are not bothered by the wellness and future of the lake.”
Ruoya says rogue investors have already constructed dykes around the lake, preventing the right flow of water. He says the construction has triggered soil erosion and pollution due to disposal of construction materials into the lake.
He now demands to know the motive of the proposal and what will happen to the land that will be excised.
“Even if they are going to disclose all this information to us, our stand is we will not accept the proposal, for we want the riparian to remain as it is,” Ruoya adds.
“We should be having guidelines of conserving the lake due to water shortage in Naivasha and the over 80,000 people who directly rely on and benefit from the lake, and not guidelines of riparian reduction.”
The riparian land in Kamere Beach, one of the beaches in Lake Naivasha, is used by fishermen as a landing site and also by traders who buy fish from the fishermen and sell to the community. There are more than 150 fishermen who depend on the riparian for their fishing activities.
The fishermen and traders complain some investors already claim ownership of the riparian and have blocked the way to the lake.
Fishermen complain police have been harassing and dragging them to court due to the conflict between them and the local investor.
The county assembly of Nakuru also says it was not consulted when WRA proposed to make the historic move.
The Environment Committee received the notice from the authority on the proposal, but there was no justification given, and most information was not disclosed.
Committee chairman Joseph Mungai, also the Maiela MCA, says the authority has taken up a responsibility that is not under its mandate.
“This is a serious issue and as a committee, we have a taken a step of asking the authority to meet with us to know why they intend to create a no-man’s land, and explain why due process was not followed,” he says.
Some beaches on Lake Naivasha have
been grabbed /MURIMI GITARI
PETITION PLANNED
Mungai promises to mobilise other MCAs, MPs and Nakuru Senator Susan Kihika to object to the move. He says the lake benefits the surrounding community, and its destruction will hurt the tourism, power, agriculture and hospitality sectors.
“We have a petition through which we hope an injunction will be issued to stop the process. We are going to petition the National Assembly and the Senate," he said.
The Lake Naivasha Riparian Association, a regional environment lobby, says the authority is opening an avenue for land grabbing and ratification of illegal titles.
It says WRA has failed to protect the lake from pollution, encroachment and adverse human activities.
Silas Wanjala, the general manager of the association, says the riparian land that WRA plans to hive off has a dense stretch of acacia woodland, which is critical to supporting the ecology of the lake.
The woodland serves as a natural habitat for birds of prey and wildlife.
He says the WRA proposal will trigger human activities like cultivation, legitimising illegalities that will expose the lake to more ecological harm.
“A kilometre stretch of land is going to be lost with most of it being in the northern and eastern part of it. WRA has not indicated the fate of the land that will no longer be riparian for the adjudication of that particular land is not known and technically it’s supposed to be surrendered to the National Land Commission,” Wanjala says.
The riparian association, formed in 1929 to arbitrate conflicts between landowners and to advocate the lake’s conservation, plans to firmly oppose the WRA move.