The experts, who belong to the Lake Victoria Basin Commission (LVBC) met early last week to discuss, review reports on the development of the water Resources Management plan phase I for the Lake Victoria Basin commission.
The LVBC Executive Secretary Dr Canisius Kanangire said that over the last decade, it has become evident that lake Victoria Basin’s landscapes, ecosystems and the human population are threatened by both natural and human persuaded factors and these have made ecosystem in the world at present under considerable threat.
He noted that the experts’ inception report review on the development of the water Resources Management plan phase I for the lake Victoria Basin is a legal requirement in Tanzania to put in place plans that can help curb the rampant water need and develop the water resources management.
All riparian countries are facing the same water resources management plan as the basin’s population has increased and demand for resources from the basin and wastes generated from the use of basin resources.
He said that as a result, the basin has witnessed fast degradation, decline of water quality and quantity, land degradation, Lake Victoria level decline with negative consequences to navigation and fisheries, propagation of invasive species like water hyacinth and increase in incidence of absolute poverty.
Dr Kanangire stressed that extensive catchment degradation within the Mau forest complex in the republic of Kenya and accelerating land degradation in the republics of Burundi, Rwanda and forest and water land degradation of the republic of Uganda and the united republic of Tanzania as well as renaissance of water hyacinth, are evidence of the magnitude of the problems the basin is facing.
It is known that in Rwanda, the hyacinth was removed from Lake Ihema in 2010 using manual methods and taken out of Akagera National Park and re-used as fertilisers in neighbouring agricultural fields.
Dr. Canisius Kanangire, the Executive Secretary of LVBC, said the commission was doing all its best to guarantee that projects in the partner countries become vital to the livelihood of the regional population.
The Lake Victoria Basin covers an estimated 194,000 square kilometres. It has a population of about 40 million people; a GDP of $40 billion; and, a wealth of resources of economic importance.
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