The Green Belt Movement

The Green Belt Movement has embarked on an operation to weed out the dreaded water hyacinth from Lake Naivasha.

According to the chairperson of the movement Professor Wangari Maathai plans are in top gear top restore the lake which is in danger of drying up.

Prof Maathai expressed the need to urgently remove the water hyacinth that has invaded Lake Naivasha in order to save marine life in the lake from extinction.

The Nobel Peace Prize Laureate the hyacinth was spreading at an alarming rate and unless urgent measures are taken to remove it, the lake will suffer the same fate as Lake Victoria and Nairobi Dam where social and economic activities were almost completely affected by the weed.

She was speaking in Naivasha during a Lake Naivasha stakeholder's forum to chart the way forward on how to save the lake.

The water hyacinth is believed to be spreading fast in the lake due to the nutrients in the lake from fertilizers used in nearby flower farms.

Prof Maathai said marine life in the lake was also threatened by pollution arising from chemicals used in the numerous flower-farms around the lake and in farms upstream.

Effluent from Naivasha town is also said to find its way to lake due to poor drainage system as majority of the flower farms did not have wet land systems.

The sewer system of the town was constructed in the 1960s to serve a population of between 15,000 and 20,000 people but it currently serves a population of over 200,000 people.

Pro Maathai appealed to the Ministry of Lands to reclaim all the corridors and riparian land which have been grabbed around the lake.

"The riparian land and the corridors are very important and those who have grabbed them must return them. We have laws in this land and they must be complied with", she said.

Meanwhile Prof Maathai has hailed President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga for signing the new Constitutional Amendment Bill which will see the formation of a special tribunal to investigate and prosecute those behind the post election violence that rocked the country early this year.

Prof Maathai said those behind the violence should face the law in order to break a culture of impunity in the country.

She however cautioned against wholesome condemnation of the suspects before they are tried and given a fair hearing.

"When the names in the Waki secret envelope are made public let us not victimize the suspects until the law process finds them guilty as charged", she said.

On the fears that the tribunal will net small fish while shielding the big fish who masterminded the violence, Prof Maathai said she was confident the tribunal will do its work without favour or discrimination as it will consist of people of international repute.

She also added her voice to those calling on President Kibaki not to sign the Media Bill.

Prof Mathai called on the president to allow further consultations and dialogue on the contentious clauses in the bill and take it back to the parliament before enacting it into law.

"We know we need some measure of control in order to ensure that the media does not go overboard in its work to inform and educate the public, but this should be done through consultations. Let us not go back to the dark days when the media was harassed right, left and centre", Prof. Mathai said.

She also expressed her reservations over the disbandment of the Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK) saying it was wrong to condemn the team wholesome as they were not entirely to blame for the electoral malpractices that occurred.

She said both the electorate and the politicians were also to blame for the malpractices as politicians bribed the voters and election officials in order to have their way and even incited them to violence.

Prof. Mathai said ECK needed autonomy in order to function well and just replacing the current group with another appointed under similar circumstances will not solve the problem.

"As long as the politicians have a say in who becomes an official, the ECK cannot be independent and will continue to face similar challenges as politicians have vested interests," she said.