“The Mara River will be dead in three years.”This was the chilling conclusion made by Mr George Natembeya, the Narok County Commissioner, when we spoke to him.
The once mighty river, known worldwide as the haven of ferocious crocodiles that timed and drowned wildebeest as they crossed, is now a shadow of its former glory.
At some spots, the dry river bed is what remains as evidence of human damage to the Mara ecosystem. The worst, we were told, is yet to come.
When the Nation toured the entire expanse of the Mara, new images and sights of wildebeest trotting along the dry river bed, where their ancestors had previously been mauled by giant crocodiles, became the first signs that the spectacular scenes — vividly captured by National Geographic and other wildlife channels — of wildebeests jumping in to the deep swollen river were nothing but history.
Our mission was to find out why the drying up of this internationally-important water body seems almost assured.
From the extensive tour, interviews with many people and reference to documents, there are no doubts that sooner, rather than later, the chicken might finally come home to roost.
At the moment — the question is no longer whether — but how long that will take.
Although some gave a window of between five and 10 years, everyone was clear that the Mara River is dying: the biggest blow to Kenya’s tourism sector and a doom to the Masai Mara Game Reserve.
We toured some of the tributaries that empty into the Mara River and saw the visible effects of over-concentration of tourist facilities in the ecosystem.
But we never anticipated what we saw at Kiptunga Swamp, which is the source of the Mara River.
Joseph Kitkai, one of the herders we met there, informed us that some 20 years ago, anyone venturing into the swamp, animals included, “would be swallowed” into the ground.
“We lost 10 cows here,” he said indicating that the swamp had a sinkhole.
But this is no more; animals can now graze inside the swamp while a private company, Timsales Ltd, was licensed by the Kenya Forest Service to be planting and harvesting exotic, water-guzzling tree species close by.
Apparently, the upper zone of the Mara River has minimal water extraction activities but in the middle and lower zones, there is direct collection by households, urban centres and irrigation schemes.
Reports also show that the Nyangores River provides water to Tenwek hospital, Silibwet and Bomet Town.
Already, the loss of volumes along the river has affected the globally renown wildebeest migration which was declared one of the new Seven Wonders of the World in 2006.
#ICYMI: Our feature on the dying Mara river #MaraDeathBed is now showing. @SheilaSendeyo pic.twitter.com/FmDu4Mm94o
— NTV Kenya (@ntvkenya) October 1, 2018