"Lake Victoria is doomed," lake specialist Eric Odada says with certainty regarding the future of the world's second largest body of water. And on closer inspection, the dire prediction seems like it might be right. Rows of filthy cars and trucks rest in the murky water, as boys scramble to get them clean, splashing soapy liquid that forms a creamy film above the surface - just one scene from the lake shore any environmentalist would baulk at. Behind the cars is a vast carpet of water hyacinth, a plant that thrives in polluted water and covers every inch of this bay on the shores of Kisumu, Kenya's third city, stifling already dwindling fish stocks.
As environment ministers from 190 countries meet in Bali, Indonesia to thrash out a new emissions reduction plan, experts and some of the 33 million people who reside by or near the lake say urgent action is needed to prevent Lake Victoria from shrivelling up completely. Odada, who sits on a UN advisory board and hails from a village by the basin, said Lake Victoria has dried up three times in its history, but the risk of it happening again is due mostly to human-induced environmental effects, climate change being only one of them.
Deforestation from villages around the lake or from the dozens of rivers that pour into it has caused silt and sediment to flow in, raising the water level and thus increasing the speed of evaporation. The water level has reduced from 120 metres to 40 in less than a century. Ultimately, Africa's largest lake could dry up entirely, killing all fish species in it.
"If things continue this way, millions of people who depend directly or indirectly on the lake will lose their means to survive," said Geoffrey Obure, 34, who has been fishing on Lake Victoria for the last 15 years.
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http://indiainteracts.com/gossip/2007/12/05/9983/Africas-largest-lake-under-threat/
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