Red river and gullies

A recent visit I made to the Lake Bogoria River Basin in the Rift Valley region of Kenya brought something to the fore that is critical in the water resources management work that I do – land degradation.

Looking down from a bridge, what I saw was a red river – laden with so much silt it was phenomenal.

This basin is particularly interesting because it lies within two rather distinct zones – one semi-arid and another high rainfall. The lower zone towards the famous Lake Bogoria is the semi-arid zone with almost predominantly pastoral communities. The pressure of large herds of animals on this rather fragile area is highly visible. From the steep slopes towering parts of the area, one can see clearly over grazed hill slopes. Further down in the low lying area – the presence of gullies is highly indicative of originally good land – gone bad. As a result – rivers of red are at all not a surprise.

I suppose the million dollar (and indeed some of the ongoing projects in this part of the country cost that much) question is – how do you reverse such a trend? Food for thought.