Death invades Lake Kenyatta as drought ravages Lamu

A wafting, pungent smell of decomposing flesh assaults nostrils more than 100 metres away.

An army of scavengers takes charge both in the air and on land, feasting on carcasses of hippopotamus, tortoise, slugs, fish, snail, birds and other animals.

Swarms of flies and other insects give buzzing salutes you as you walk through the valley of death that has become the lake named after Kenya’s founding President Mzee Jomo Kenyatta.

INLETS BLOCKED

Lake Kenyatta in Mpeketoni, Lamu County, is on the verge of extinction— thanks to humans who have encroached on it and blocked almost all its inlets in the name of farming.

As you move closer, the silence of a cemetery fills the water body that was once characterised by chattering monkeys, chirping birds, croaking frogs, grunting warthogs, rumbling buffaloes and screaming hippos.

Dried up bones and millions of shells of dead molluscs and reptiles dot the dried-up parts of the water body that has shrunk by an estimated five kilometres.

BONES AND SHELLS

In 1980s, Lake Kenyatta was 12 kilometres in length. Today, it is less than seven kilometres long and shrinking by the day.

The water source located on the northern Coast of Kenya, some 230 kilometres from Malindi town and 60 kilometres from Lamu Archipelago, was also home to herds of zebra, waterbucks and unique species of wild birds.

This life is no more.

In its place are bones, shells and nauseating smell—a disaster that has shocked residents, environmentalists, visitors and the Lamu county government.

15 HIPPOS DEAD

In the last one month alone, 15 hippos have succumbed to drought and death at the lake is now threatening the lives of over 40,000 residents who depend on it for food, water and income.

The few surviving animals, fish and birds are also staring at death after the lake’s water turned salty.

Some can hardly walk.

Lake Kenyatta does not have an outlet and it mainly loses water through evaporation.

RAVAGING DROUGHT

Since its inlets are blocked, increased evaporation due to the drought, which has ravaged many parts of coastal Kenya, has made its water to become saline.

“Hippos can no longer enjoy the lake. Even fish have problems,” says Benson Kariuki, chairman of Lake Kenyatta Water users Association— a body that controls a Sh80 million water project that supplies water to over 5,000 residents in the area.

“We urge the national and county government to intervene and demarcate the lake and protect it.”

LAKE SHRINKING

Governor Timamy came face to face with the lake’s disaster on Tuesday when he visited the area accompanied by a group of environmentalists from the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).

“I am worried by what I have seen at Lake Kenyatta,” he says as he shakes his head.

“The lake is shrinking at an alarming rate and it is sad to see such a crucial resource on the verge of extinction.”

He blames the deepening crisis on increased human settlement and crop cultivation around the lake.

RICE FARMING

Streams that used to feed the lake, he says, have been interfered with as locals battle to feed their bulging families.

“Human beings are growing rice in the water ways and wetlands, while cattle in thousands come to feed water from the lake every day,” he explains.

Ravaging drought has seen pastoralists from Lamu, Tana River and Garissa counties descend on the lake with flocks of their thirsty livestock.

Besides drinking, the cattle pollute the lake and graze vegetation around the water body— creating unnecessary competition for food with wild animals.

4M CATTLE

An estimated four million heads of cattle drink water from the endangered lake each year, putting additional strain on the little water left on its bed by sun rays.

Timamy’s leadership, the WWF and Lake Kenyatta Water Users Association have started plans to save the water body from imminent extinction.

WWF Lamu and Tana Landscape Programme Manager John Bett wants Kenya Wildlife Service to gazette the lake with a view of addressing water scarcity in Lamu and surrounding regions.

“We need to come together and introduce short-term measures to save the lake. There is need for the lake to be fenced so as to reduce the influx of cattle,” he says.

LAKE INVASION

Bett regrets the residents' invasion of the lake.

A big population of Mpeketoni and Mkunubi, he says, depends on the water body for survival but little is being done to conserve it.

On his part, Timamy wants Kenya Wildlife Service to establish if there could be other factors killing animals in the region besides drought.

Additional reporting by Harry Misiko.