Floating plastic, papyrus islands may help restore Lake Naivasha
From: Allison Winter, ENN
Published September 21, 2012 11:20 AM
Floating plastic, papyrus islands may help restore Lake Naivasha
Besides being known as the material for the first paper of ancient Egypt, papyrus is also very valuable in filtering water as it has the ability to recycle nutrients. In fact, plans are being implemented to plant papyrus on floating plastic islands which will help protect the ecosystem of a prominent water source known as Lake Naivasha in Kenya.
Lake Naivasha is a large freshwater lake that has been ecologically suffering for the past 30 years. Dr Harper, a Senior Lecturer at the University of Leicester, who is in part responsible for the restoration attributes this decline to the population growth in the surrounding town due to the floriculture industry as cut flowers have become one of Kenya’s top grossers of foreign exchange.
Dr Harper explains: "As job opportunities have grown, the human population has grown more than twenty-fold, and settlements have sprung up in a haphazard fashion, clearing papyrus. In the same 30 year period, the population of buffalo native to the lake has trebled, knocking down the papyrus to eat it."
Besides the decrease in papyrus plants, the unregulated use of lake water for irrigation is reducing the level of the lake and causing environmental concerns. Also, the lake is suffering from sediment that has accumulated in the lake due to bank erosion. Sediment poses a major concern as it can block sunlight from getting to underwater plants which stimulate the ecosystem.
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