World Environment Day 2021: Ecosystem Restoration

It is June 5^th, World Environment Day. A day where we celebrate nature and renew our commitments to protect and conserve it. This year’s theme being Ecosystem Restoration, what rings bells in my mind are; sustainable tree growing, waste management and management of natural water bodies. There are many things to be done individually, as communities, nations, and the world at large to help restore our various ecosystems.

This WED, I wish to briefly pen about water bodies – specifically – the Lake Victoria whose shores my mother land is situated.  But before that:

A few facts on our water ecosystems and why we must restore them.

• Nearly 71% of the earth’s surface is covered by water. That is a whole lot of water, right? Oceans occupy approximately 96.5% of this proportion which and mostly salty water. Unfortunately, only 2.5% of the global water mass is constituted by fresh water, mostly found in lakes and rivers. The big question then remains why we lack sufficient fresh water for all humans when there is technology be able to treat or desalinize the massive salty ocean waters.
• Nearly 785 million people, constituting over 10% of the world’s population lack access to safe water. It is projected that by 2050, this disparity will increase. Over 50% of the global population will live in regions with extreme water stress which means that even the little-to-much water we see today will become a scarce commodity if things continue in the business-as-usual mode.

Water Hyacinth – the menace harbouring Lake Victoria’s former glory

Lake Victoria is the largest freshwater lake in Africa, and the second largest in the world after Lake Superior in the United States/Canada. It borders the countries Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania and is the source of river Nile. It supports various economic activities and livelihoods notably fishing, wildlife, beaches, inland transport between the three countries, among others. Lake Victoria currently faces one of the greatest menaces of all times – the water hyacinth which has been there since the early 1990s with no success at eliminating it to date.  For some entrepreneurs, it has been a great source of business while continuously becoming a nuisance particularly to the fisherfolks, other aquatic species and general reliance by communities near the shores who have traditionally relied on this precious water gem.

Credit: The Standard

Hyacinth covers an extensive area of the Lake Victoria, as it does other water masses regionally and globally. Control measures for this species is done either through chemical, biological and mechanical control techniques. Cost-wise, chemical control has been found to be moderately cheap, whereas mechanical techniques that involve the use of machinery to remove and shred the weed are expensive. Biological control is seen as the more sustainable option but has unfortunately not been fully tested and deployed.

Restoring the Beauty of Lake Victoria

As we celebrate World Environment Day, there is need to explore more ways to curb increased injection of pollutant waste materials into the lake and contain the water hyacinth. Channelling of more investments into biological control techniques is the surest way to restore the ecosystem while benefiting the local community economically. These includes the use of hyacinth in fertilizer production, animal feed production, and biofuel production such as biogas ventures thriving at Kenya’s Dunga beach thanks to Biogas International’s technology.

You can read this Sustainability paper to delve deeper into the benefits of water hyacinth for Southern Africa.

In the same way fishermen set out to find the highly priced fish from the fresh waters of Lake Victoria, equal effort towards hyacinth extraction can be achieved if we focus on growing the numerous business opportunities for which the weed is a raw material.  Who knows, hyacinth may end up becoming a scarce commodity just like Lake Victoria’s fish, only difference being time the scarcity will be for the broader ecosystem good and wellbeing!

Happy World Environment Day! Join the global movement to begin the UN decade of Restoration. Reimagine. Recreate. Restore.