Crisis looms as one more water tower runs dry

• Pastoralists are now moving to Ethiopia as catchment loss makes area barren

The forest, the report says, is over-utilised as the community usually cut down trees for fire wood. More that 600 women enter the forest daily in search of fire wood, the Nema report says.

In 2005/2006, women were collecting 1,000 tonnes of fire wood per year. “The number has now gone up,” Mr Mamo says.

Without a good forest cover, Mr Mamo points out, soils are exposed to erosion.

Livestock entry into the forest is another factor causing the degradation of the forest as herders go with pangas to cut fodder for their animals. In the process they destroy trees and other vegetation.

The animals enter the forest on a daily basis to graze and to access water.

However, drilling of boreholes around the mountain region is being seen as another catastrophe that is ruining the environment.

Several organisations working in the larger Marsabit have drilled boreholes around the mountain area where water is a big problem. Nema has also complained about encroachment of the mountain ecosystem by plot owners.

In the report, Nema blames Marsabit County Council of allocating 425 plots at Kofia Baya Hill, which is a water catchment area.

The report also say that lack of clear understanding on which government department is supposed to manage the forest is another problem. There is the Forest Department and the Kenya Wildlife Service, which manage the forest.

Apart from the Mt Marsabit ecosystem, the region has two other water catchments areas — Mount Kulal in Laisamis and Huri Hill at the Northern side of Marsabit Forest.

While the former has a forest cover of 45,000 hectares, the latter, which had a forest cover of 30,000 hectares, has been reduced to bare grassland.

Nema is now appealing to donors to come and save the two water towers — Marsabit Forest and Huri Hill — to ensure survival of the pastoral communities.