Experts warn of dire effects as pollution takes toll on 7 lakes

Kampala. At Murchison Bay, near Luzira, a Kampala suburb, Joseph Mukasa loops stones to his nets as he prepares to cast them in a green slime - a toxic algae bloom – covering a large section of Lake Victoria.
As he casts his nets, though, Mukasa is not sure whether he will catch fish, just enough to pay his daily bills.
“Fish is scarce lately,” he says. “You can go in the waters but come back with only mukene (silver fish) but mukene fetches so little yet authorities tax us,” he adds.
What Mukasa considers a local problem is rather a regional problem affecting 11 other countries that form the Great Lakes region.
The lakes in question are: Victoria, Albert, Edward, Kivu, Turkana, Malawi and Tanganyika that serve an estimated 50 million people in the Great Lakes Region.

The countries that form African Great Lakes ecosystem include; Uganda , Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Zambia, Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi.
Lake Victoria’s water has turned green and thick as a result effluent discharged into the lake on a daily basis. These human activities have put lives of millions of people at risk in the three East African countries that use the lake for domestic activities and fishing, among others.
Conservationists have blamed pollution of the lakes and low fish stocks on the ongoing unplanned human settlements around lakes.
Speaking at the African Great Lakes Conference in Entebbe, Wakiso District early this week, Dr Medard Modesta, The Nature Conservancy (TNC) regional manager, said the lakes are facing unprecedented pollution from settlers who have turned them into toilets. Factories and agricultural activities have too silted the lakes.

Dr Modesta added that governments have to act urgently and regulate the said activities if the future of the lakes is to be guaranteed.
Uganda, like the rest of the countries, has already paid the price through the declining fish stocks.
The Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries figures show that Uganda has lost more than one million jobs due to the dwindling fish stocks as more than 10 fish processing factories have closed over the past five years.
“We have done a number of surveys, [which have revealed that] when fishermen go to the lakes, everything is done from there,” Dr Modesta said in reference to fishermen easing themselves in the lakes.

“Most of the water users of these lakes use it for everything and there is an aspect of communicable diseases. How do we handle those when our settlements are not well arranged?” she added.
The conference, which drew different stakeholders on Lake conservation, was spearheaded by the African Great Lakes initiative led by TNC, a global conservation organisation.
At the same event, Mr Colin Apse from TNC, announced that MacArthur Foundation had given $500,000 (about Shs1.8 billion) grant to the African Great Lakes Conservation Fund to finance projects that address sustainable use of the resources.
Mr Paul Mafabi, the director of environment in the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries, said polluting and encroachments on lakes’ buffer zones have not only affected fish stocks, but also put government plans of establishing irrigation schemes to counter effects of climate change like long dry spell, at risk.

“Wetlands and forests are the reservoirs of these lakes. We have to strike a balance with development,” Mr Mafabi said.
The other key challenge that Dr Modesta said needed to be addressed to save lakes in question is corruption that has rendered governance of the lakes almost impossible.
“If we talk about illegal fishing gear, it is [because of] corruption. The law enforcers are the ones causing these problems,” she said at the three-day conference that ended yesterday.
An estimated 70 per cent of fishermen on the said lakes use illegal gear, according to Dr Modesta.

Dr Jerome Sebadduka Lugumira, the National Environment Management Authority (Nema) natural resources manager in charge of soils and land use, said every time buffer zones are tempered with, decline in fish stocks is inevitable.
Recently, Mr Geoffrey Monor, the executive secretary of Lake Victoria Fisheries Organisation, an institution of the East African Community, acknowledged the decline and said everything was being done, including joint monitoring of the lake, providing adequate information to policy makers and lobbying for reinstatement of beach management units, to tame irregularities.
Here, East African member countries agreed that all fishing boats on Lake Victoria must have number plates before being authorised to ply the lake.

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