UN Sounds Alarm Over Looming Water Conflicts in Africa

UN sounds alarm over looming water conflicts in Africa

NAIROBI, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) — African countries sharing large water masses face increasing tensions and instability arising from competition for water among various communities, a UN senior official warned here Monday.

The UN Environmental Program (UNEP) Executive Director Klaus Toepfer said African lakes were suffering from acute environmental destruction and the continent faced imminent economic losses estimated at 37 billion US dollars in lost recreational value from freshwater masses.

Research carried out by the UN body and a US university and unveiled at the 11th World Lakes Conference underway in Nairobi, says countries face increasing tensions and instability as rising populations compete for life’s most precious recourse, water.

“Sustainable management of African Lakes remains a key responsibility in the continent’s fight against poverty and towards attainment of internationally agreed developmental goals by 2015,” Toepfer said here Monday.

African lakes are facing the pressure of environmental degradation, such as Lake Songor in Ghana, which is under the pressure of intensive salt production.

The River Zambezi is also threatened by what the UNEP calls the “extraordinary changes” as a result of the building of the Cabora Basa dam. Lake Chad, according to UNEP has also shrunk 90 percent.

Toepfer said African water bodies continue to face “increasing” tensions and instability amidst its growing population struggling for its sustenance, adding, the continent’s populace “must” heed to the warnings the images portend to avert looming dangers.

UNEP has launched an African lakes atlas, bringing into sharp focus the dramatic and damaging environmental changes affecting Africa’s water bodies and the alarming toll on its negative effects continues to cause great concern.

In a speech read on his behalf by his vice Moody Awori, Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki noted lakes were critical elements in ecosystems, as well, socio-economic pillars, calling on the world to practice caution while handling environmental issues.

“Lakes serve as basic elements of ecosystems and socio-economic. Everybody in the world should practice caution in handling issues related to the environment,” he said.

The Kenyan leader called for elimination of specific threats to lakes and reservoirs through development of all-encompassing and holistic strategies towards their sustainable management.

He decried challenges related to lakes among them, insufficient scientific knowledge and technical shortcomings, inadequate intellectual financial and technological resources.

Kenya has taken exceptional approaches through research in scientific knowledge in finding causes and remedies in a bid to a legal institution geared towards saving lakes in the country, Kibaki said.

Findings of the World Lake Conference will afterwards receive global attention through formulation of the Nairobi Declaration.