| inbluevt | Date: Monday, 2013/09/16, 1:41 PM | Message # 1 | DMCA |
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NAIROBI, Sep 15 2013 (IPS) - For decades Zakayo Ekeno has walked Turkana County’s arid land, herding his livestock, and his father’s before that. Yet nothing about the persistently drought-stricken land in northern Kenya could have given him an indication of the wealth beneath it.
“I have asked myself many times whether anything good can come out of this godforsaken land,” Ekeno says. Turkana is the most arid and poorest of Kenya’s 47 counties and in 2011 almost 9.5 million people of the mainly nomad community here were affected by severe drought.
So few people could have even dreamt that beneath the sun-scorched, cracked earth was enough water to supply this entire country of 41.6 million people for 70 years.On Sept. 11, the government and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) announced the discovery of an estimated 200 billion cubic metres of freshwater reserves in Turkana County’s Lotikipi basin.
“Every year our livestock die from lack of water and pasture. We also live in fear of cattle rustlers who steal our animals to replace what they lost. I have been injured during these raids. The water is a solution to this conflict,” Ekeno says.Until now, the U.N. has categorised Kenya as a chronically water-scarce country and UNESCO statistics show that 17 million people
here lack access to safe water.
Kenya currently uses about three billion cubic metres of water a year.
While the discovery has been met with excitement, water and environment experts like scientist Judith Gicharu caution that this East African government has little capacity or legislation to manage this water sustainably.
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Message edited by inbluevt - Monday, 2013/09/16, 2:33 PM |
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