Crisis looms as one more water tower runs dry

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

Environmentalists have raised the red flag over the continued degradation of the Mt Marsabit ecosystem blaming it for prolonged drought and scarcity of water being experienced in the vast arid region.

If the problem is not addressed urgently, the National Environmental Management Authority (Nema) has warned the livestock industry, which is the lifeline for communities living in the greater Marsabit, will collapse.

Already, domestic animals and wild animals have started dying in worrying numbers due to lack of pasture and water.

With the destruction of the main forest cover in the region, there is now very little underground water to sustain the livestock.

The area, which is in Northern Kenya, has no permanent river and residents rely solely on boreholes and wells.

As animals continue to die, their owners are not safe either. Cholera and dysentery have hit the region due to lack of clean water. Already, 18 people have succumbed to cholera while scores are recovering at the Laisamis Catholic Hospital.

“We have cholera patients trickling in here one by one,” the hospital administrator, Mr Naphtali Mutuma says.

Pastoralists are expressing fear that if it doesn’t rain in the next three weeks, most of the livestock will be wiped out.

“We are facing the worst famine ever because, unlike other years, water is becoming inadequate,” a herder from Laisamis, Lekwaja Saha says.

At Bubisa area, hundreds of sheep and goats died last month after trekking for more than 45 kilometres to access a water point.

Since December, the area around Mt Marsabit has not received rains. Normally, the mountain is the hope for residents of the 66,000 square kilometre region that is either semi-arid or arid.

After raining in the mountain region, water percolates to the lowlands where it hardly rains.

“The forest (Marsabit Forest) is the water catchment for the lowlands,” the environmental officer in charge of the larger Marsabit, Mr Mamo Boru Mamo told the Nation.

Although the climate in the lowland is hot, according to Mr Mamo, it used to favour livestock since it had enough water. But not any more.

Currently, most pastoralists in the region have migrated to far areas. Some have crossed over to neighbouring Ethiopia while others have moved to Samburu area and Merti in Isiolo District.