April 22, 2009
Global warming, intensified agricultural practices, and a burgeoning local population threaten not only the quantity, but also the quality of the water resources in a Maasai community in the shadow of Mt. Kilimanjaro. The School for Field Studies’ Center for Wildlife Management Studies, in Kimana, Kenya, recently presented these findings from a European Union funded research initiative, the Kimana Community Water Resource Conservation Project, to local community groups in the Kajiado district. The Conservation Project, spearheaded by SFS faculty members Dr. John Kiringe, Dr. Moses Okello, and Salaton Tome in collaboration with Noomayianat Community Development Organization (NCDO), provides information and spreads public awareness of workable and sustainable water use and management strategies of catchment areas. The area in which the Center works is known as the Kimana Group Ranch, a property communally owned by a group of Maasai families, encompassing more than 6,000 square km within the Tsavo-Amboseli ecosystem around Mt. Kilimanjaro. The major water sources in the area, including springs, rivers, and ground water, are all supplied by glaciers on top of Kilimanjaro, which decrease in size each year due to environmental conditions and global warming. Competition and conflict over water is increasing on the ground between the pastoralist Maasai, who use the land to graze livestock, and non-Maasai agriculturalists, who have established permanent agricultural fields around the Ranch’s important wetland areas.
As part of the scientific method to analyze water quantity and quality, water flow rates were measured and samples from over 60 locations were taken to the University of Nairobi for chemical and biological analysis. Lab results suggest that most of the water sources in Kimana were unfit for human consumption without treatment based on the presence of total coliform count and E. coli, which may have been the cause of water borne illness in the region, including typhoid, dysentery, and amoebosis.
The symposium, attended by the chairman and members of the Project Implementation Committee, public service and government officials, members of women’s groups and other community stakeholders and officials, and SFS students and staff, delivered a comprehensive analysis of the water status in the Kimana area in addition to recommendations to improve the livelihoods of local people. Suggested projects focused on promoting equitable water distribution, fencing water sources to prevent mixing of water used for human and livestock consumption, and proper construction of pit latrines to prevent leakages of waste materials into the water supply.
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