Chapter 3
In: Agricultural Intensification, Environmental Conservation, Conflict and Co-Existence at Lake Naivasha, Kenya
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Abstract
This chapter reviews the complex history of conservation activities in the Lake Naivasha area from the onset of European colonial settlement to the present. Conservation in the region is not a recent activity spurred by the growth of horticulture. Over the last 125 years, residents, government authorities, and conservation advocates have raised the alarm over human-induced environmental changes caused by many forms of local development, including European settlement in the riparian area, tourism, commercial fishing, postcolonial relocation schemes for landless Kenyans, horticulture, and geothermal power. There have also been several attempts to create a coordinated plan for managing the lake and to bring local development decisions under a central authority. We examine the rhetoric and reality of environmental efforts centred on Lake Naivasha, the ecological and socio-political dynamics driving these conservation efforts and their actual outcomes. These efforts have not prevented the ongoing ecological degradation of the lake, but each has introduced new regulatory strategies and partnerships in governance that have resulted in some positive changes. If this lake and the many human and non-human communities it sustains are to continue to thrive, centralized control and management strategies that keep in mind the ecological limits to growth and development are still necessary.