By Ally Jamah

Kenya faces a grave environmental future unless the Government initiates urgent measures to stem worrying destruction.

The warning is contained in a new report launched by the United Nations Environmental Programme (Unep), which shows the country is losing its biodiversity at an alarming rate.

"The loss of biodiversity in Kenya is threatening the tourism industry, which is the second largest foreign exchange earner and supports thousands of jobs," warned Unep Executive Director Achim Steiner.

Mr Steiner spoke yesterday while launching The Global Biodiversity Outlook Report, ahead of a conference on the Convention on Biological Diversity in Nairobi. More than 800 delegates are gathered till the end of this month.

"Kenya has so much to lose from loss of biodiversity and so much to gain from protecting and using it sustainably," said Ahmed Djoghlaf, the Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

The report showed the goals Kenya and other countries set in 2002 for a "significant reduction" in the loss of biodiversity by 2010, have not been met.

Personal impact

Steiner decried the widespread destruction of forests and pollution of fresh water sources, seeing them as a direct threat to the country’s economy and livelihoods of ordinary Kenyans.

"Biodiversity is no longer a luxury. We need it more than ever on a planet of six billion heading to over nine billion people by 2050," he said.

The 94-page report, compiled from reports from 120 countries, specifically mentioned Lake Naivasha, which faces severe pollution and a possible depletion of fish stocks.

"Among the threats facing the lake are over-abstraction of water, linked partly to irrigation of nearby flower farms. The lake also suffers from nutrient pollution and over-fishing," the report says.

In March, there was public outcry after a large number of fish died in the lake, a fact blamed on excessive pollution. The lake is also a major tourist attraction point.

Experts said biodiversity loss was a "silent crisis" rapidly approaching its "tipping point" where the damage may not be easily reversible.

The Unep director admitted it was still a challenge for many ordinary people to understand issues of biodiversity and relate them to their day-to-day life.

He, however, said Kenyans are beginning to look at environment with a new lens of conservation.