At the foot of the famous Aberdare Ranges in Nyandarua County, lies one of the few fresh-water lakes in Central Kenya – Lake Ol Bollosat.<\/p>\n
The lake is known the thousands of hippos and more than three hundred species of birds that call it home.It is also where River Ewaso Nyiro sources its water as it meanders to the Nyahururu\u00a0Thompson Falls and further downstream, besides being a source of water to thousands of families in Northern Kenya.Being the only\u00a0lake\u00a0in the region, it has been a tourist attraction and a source of revenue for the county government.<\/p>\n
But the unwelcome threat of its extinction is causing jitters among locals and players in the tourism and environment sectors.The massive destruction of the Aberdare Forest and human encroachment of the riparian land around the\u00a0lake is at the centre of the blame game.<\/p>\n
In the last one decade, Ol-Bollosat\u00a0has lost its water surface area from about 10,000 hectares to just 3,000 hectares.\u00a0The rate at which the\u00a0lake\u00a0is drying up is putting government officials and residents around the\u00a0lake\u00a0at logger heads. Thousands of birds have migrated from the\u00a0lake, with the hippos suffering a massive population decline. It is said that a hippo dies each day at Lake Ol-Bollosat.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe number of tourists has reduced by half in the last three years. It is now unthinkable to invest in the tourism sector within this area,\u201d says Joseph Kinyua, a hotel owner in Nyahururu town. The Nyandarua County Government is now blaming the locals and other stakeholders of encroaching on the Aberdares forest and the lake\u2019s riparian land.<\/p>\n
In a recent tour of the\u00a0lake, top county leadership led by Water and Environment Chief Executive Milcah Wanjiru decried the rate at which the forest had lost its cover. She ordered all those who had planted eucalyptus trees near the\u00a0lake\u00a0to cut them down and illegal settlers\u00a0evicted.<\/p>\n
A committee comprising representatives from National Environmental Management Authority (Nema), Nyandarua county government, Ministry of Lands and the Ministry of Environment has been formed to chart the way forward.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At the foot of the famous Aberdare Ranges in Nyandarua County, lies one of the few fresh-water lakes in Central Kenya – Lake Ol Bollosat. The lake is known the thousands of hippos and more than three hundred species of birds that call it home.It is also where River Ewaso Nyiro sources its water as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":3814,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3,4,7,8],"tags":[2072,2073,1015],"class_list":["post-3813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-community","category-culture-and-art","category-head-lines","category-homepage-english","tag-aberdare-ranges","tag-lake-ol-bollosat","tag-nyandarua-county"],"yoast_head":"\n