Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda urged to harmonise laws to protect Lake Victoria

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Speaking during a Lake Victoria Region Local Authorities and Counties Cooperation (LVRLACC) strategic review workshop on Wednesday, the Musoma district commissioner, Dr Vicent Naano, said Lake Victoria was facing some challenges and joint efforts were needed to protect it before it dried up.

Musoma. Lake Victoria stakeholders have been urged to push for harmonisation of laws to protect Lake Victoria for the betterment of present and future generations.

Speaking during a Lake Victoria Region Local Authorities and Counties Cooperation (LVRLACC) strategic review workshop on Wednesday, the Musoma district commissioner, Dr Vicent Naano, said Lake Victoria was facing some challenges and joint efforts were needed to protect it before it dried up.

He said the lake could only be sustainable if the laws protecting it would be similar in the three countries of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.

He noted that it would be useless for every country to have its own law, which resulted in lake pollution.

He said the lake was facing serious threats to its sustainability, including pesticides that normally ended in the lake following increased agriculture activities near the lake or its tributary rivers .

Dr Naano said the three countries were supposed to enact common laws how to minimise the impact of pesticides that ended in the lake.

“There is a need for harmonisation of laws governing this lake in the three countries to make it sustainable and useful for habitation of aquatic species and human use. It will be difficult to sustain it if every partner state has its own law governing it,” he insisted.

Participants in the workshop said there was a need to have common laws that protected the lake as it was presented by the Musoma district commissioner.