Nature deteriorates as groups wrangle over lake

As many places in Kenya continue to dry up, a private wetland built 70 years ago on hundreds of acres in South Nyandarua District has been drained, leaving area residents without water.

The 300-acre wetland was allocated last year to 75-member Githioro Farmers Cooperative. And on being issued with a title deed, the members subdivided it into two-acre plots. This effectively converted it into a private property of the group.

This has destroyed a unique habitat for as many as 500 species of mainly water birds that have inhabited the wetland since 1938, besides denying residents and thousands of their livestock water.

But residents have not taken the matter lying down. They have organised themselves into the South Nyandarua Development Forum that has been fighting to ensure that the wetland remains available for public use.

The forum has sworn to ensure that none of the 75 allottees lays claim to the land. On their part, members of the Githioro have vowed to fight to retain ownership.

This has created tension and occasional clashes between the two groups, forcing district commissioner Samuel Kilele to intervene. “It has become a security issue,” Mr Kilele said.

The wetland was put up by a European farmer, John Seminis, who dug out 313.5 acres of his vast land and maintained it for years. Over time, the low lying wetland attracted swarms of water birds and soon became a veritable playground for colonial bird, a rich hunters’ paradise that went on long after independence.

The Kenyatta government, through the Settlement Fund Trustee, bought the Seminis’s land as well as other farms in the area between 1962 and 1965 and allocated them to the landless on the understanding that they would repay back an agreed amount of cash. Each family was allocated parcels of about 100 acres for sheep and dairy farming.

But according to maps made available to the Nation the government had reserved the wetland for communal use; it did not allocate it to anyone. And for decades, the people appeared to have respected this decision.

However, the Nation has learnt that Githioro cooperative, started eyeing the wetland five years ago.

“They moved with speed and embarked on the process of acquiring a title from Lands offices in Nyandarua and Nairobi,” said Jamlick Kagwima, a former councillor.

But word of the deal appears to have reached the forum almost by accident.

“After officially registering the forum on March 9, 2007, we decided that protecting the natural resources in the district for the use of all would constitute one of our core activities,” said forum convener Junghae Wainaina.

He says that when members applied to be given trusteeship of the wetland in April 2007, they were informed by the provincial administration that it had been allocated.

“This was almost one year after we had applied,” said Mr Wainaina, who now suspects that the office had dilly-dallied so the wetland could be allocated to Githioro farmers.

Githioro farmers have now planted a signboard saying the land belongs to it and warning residents against trespass.

Githioro,, the Nation learnt from one member who did not want to be named, was started in 1968 by the 75 members many of them former administration police officers, chiefs and other cadres of the provincial administration.

“We were allocated 80,000 acres adjacent to the wetland which was subdivided into 100 acre pieces for each one of us,” he said and disclosed that over the last 40 years, some members had sold much of their land.

He also said that after being allocated the two-acre plots in the wetland last year, some of the allotees sold them to third parties. The Nation learnt that an acre goes for as much as Sh250,000 in the area.

Determined to have the wetland retained as a source of water and a habitat for the birds, the forum members went to Mr Kilele who intervened.

“I wrote a strongly worded letter to the commissioner of lands on August 26, 2007, asking him to help preserve the wetland. But it looks like a game is being played here,” said Mr Kilele.

He regrets that the letter did not deter the commissioner who went ahead to issue Githioro with a title deed. Mr Kilele said he could now do nothing “because the farmers have a title deed.”

The wetland forms part of the vast flat area overlooking the foothills of the lush Aberdare Ranges, and area known for its high productivity of potatoes, peas, cabbages, carrots as well as milk and mutton.

It supplies Nairobi residents with vegetables. However, the area has also a fluctuating climate in which extremely wet and quite dry periods alternate.

Severe drought

Now, the entire area is experiencing a severe drought that has dried up much of the maize crops the farms. Almost 98 percent of the water in the Semini’s wetland is no more, thanks to the dry spell and the activities of Githioro farmers.

As the Nation toured the area, there was evidence that the farmers had not only cultivated sections of the wetland, but have dug a canal to drain water from the lake.

As a result, only a tiny section of the wetland has water. The rest has dried up, forming a huge network of cracks.

Most of the birds that once inhabited the place no longer find the wetland attractive, apart from diehard species like crested cranes.

The change in water levels has ended up destroying trees such as eucalyptus and wattle which suck out high quantities of water, leaving the place dry.

Indeed, research by the Nairobi-based World Agroforestry Centre reveals that each mature eucalyptus sucks out as much as 200 litres of water each day.

If the intensive planting of the tree and destruction of the wetland is not halted, the entire area will lose its ability to sustain intensive farming particularly during the drier seasons.

“We want the Government to cancel the title deed and compulsorily acquire the wetland,” declared Mr Kagwima. Like Mr Kagwima, the DC vows that the land will revert to its original use no matter how long it takes. But his hands are still tied.