The impacts of local communities encroachment on wetland ecosystem; a case study of Tana River Wetlands in Tana River County, Kenya
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Date
2012-08
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Publisher
Kampala International University, School of engineering and applied science
Abstract
The study investigated the impacts of local communities’ encroachment on wetland ecosystem using Tana River wetlands in Tana County, Kenya. The main objective was to find out the activities of local communities that are responsible for Tana River wetland degradation. The problem in the context was because many people have considered wetlands as useless or waste lands, there has always been drained or reclaimed, filled in or used as dumping grounds yet wetlands play very important roles such as maintaining water cycle, control of floods, nutrient retention and export hence Wetland ecosystems have been threatened extensively, especially the lowland valley wetlands and swamp forests are coming under pressure.
The results of the study revealed that Human communities, especially those living in and around Tana River Wetlands, often have important and long standing relationships/benefits with the
wetlands. The rate of encroachment on to the wetland is increasing further than the wetland
regeneration of its resources and unless intervention measures are deployed, the local community
activities will continue causing degradation and depletion of the wetland resources. The activities
in question included cultivation/digging, brick making, fishing on river Tana, and sand mining.
Currently, these activities have doubled to extend beyond the boundaries of the catchment
wetlands of river Tana and its banks due to increased human population pressure. The major
activities in Tana River wetlands responsible for degradation included nomadic Pastoralism
which is 56%, other activities include, burning of wetlands which is 20%, grazing animals 10%
and cultivation of land 5%.
In a nutshell, the measures identified to control effects of burning grasslands included 1and~based
system as a way of detecting instances of fires, another way was through backfiring already used
in some parts of Tana River region. and it involves a consistent and carefully controlled method
of burning strips of grasslands, forests and other vegetation that have been subjected to fire. The
researcher recommends practices such as destocking, wetland protection associations, public
sensitizations on the values and conservation measures of wetlands and other water resources in
Tana River region.
Description
A Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of a Degree of Bachelor Of Science in Environmental Management of Kampala International University
Keywords
Local communities encroachment, Wetland ecosystem, Tana River Wetlands, Tana River County, Kenya