Dingy ride on the Yala

We’re in the land of tea, sugar and milk. Driving along the Nandi escarpment and into the famed hills, sugar-cane plantations line the road.

The tall grass stalks (sugar cane is a grass) give way to tea plantations. And then we’re at Kapsabet, that’s wedged between the three famous forests in western Kenya – North Nandi, South Nandi and Kakamega.

Anyone flying from Nairobi to Kisumu over the hills will see South Nandi forest as a thin belt surrounded by homesteads and farms, with the enormous and impressive stones of the iconic Nandi Rock, before landing by the shores of Victoria at Kisumu International Airport.

Until a century ago, Nandi Hills was a continuous forest belt encompassing South Nandi Forest (27,000 hectares in size) with the more famous Kakamega Forest and North Nandi Forest.

Today, the forests are separated by the main roads linking major towns.

Birding hotspot

I’m here to try and spot a bird – the endangered Turner’s Eremomela that’s found only in South Nandi Forest. Like Kakamega Forest, South Nandi Forest is a biodiversity hotspot and recognised internationally as an Important Bird Area (IBA).

But that’s not all. River Yala, the main river that flows into Lake Victoria, originates from the forest which is reputed to be home of the largest Prunus africana in the country. In terms of eco-services, the people hold it vital for water and rain.  

We’re late getting into the forest – and like most forest birds during the heat of the day, they are well into the cool canopies of the trees. Undeterred, we drive on slowly until the forest road is impassable; old trees at the end of their lifespan have crashed to the ground blocking our route.

It means turning back and driving through to the forest via Tindinyo.

School children run cross-country, barefoot on the hot tarmac road. One day, many may be the future runners that Kenya is so famous for.

The high canopies of the indigenous forests create a thick spread beyond the roads. The murram road lead us to Yala River.

It’s the boundary between the homesteads and the forest. It’s in flow, coloured by the soils of the earth. Sand harvesters on enormous inflated tyres sail up and down the river, using their spades as oars and then scooping up the sand from the river bed into the tyres and sail back to the landing strip.

We hitch a ride upstream on the enormous inflated tires to the confluence of Kimonde and Sirua Rivers that merge to form the Yala. It’s a bit of a balancing act, sitting on the edge of the inflated rubber tyres.

The oar-man is all muscle. It’s a lot of hard work under the sun sailing and shoveling sand all day.

Reaching the confluence, the river flows fast. We’re in part of the forest slated for a multi-purpose dam. Spatial distributions on computer show the three indigenous forests – Kakamega, North Nandi and South Nandi – with a 60 per cent loss of natural cover over the course of the last century.

The digital data shows a 10 per cent loss of South Nandi Forest if the dam is built.

The local community is against the project, for the very forest that feeds the rivers and waters their crops is what they depend on for survival.

FACT FILE: River Yala

• River Yala is 261 kilometres long with a catchment area of 3,351 square kilometres. Yala Swamp, where the Yala enters Lake Victoria, is Kenya’s largest freshwater swamp and the second largest in Africa.

• It’s responsible for keeping Lake Victoria waters filtered clean. Three quarters of it is leased to a private entity, compromising the integrity of the wetland unless a conservation strategy is developed. 

• Up to 60 per cent of global wetlands have been destroyed in the past 100 years. We need to protect them or face famine.