#Lake Victoria in critical condition

Pollution and overfishing in Lake Victoria have
become so severe that scientists believe they
threaten the health and livelihoods of millions of
East Africans.
And researchers in the three countries bordering
the world's largest tropical lake - Kenya, Tanzania
and Uganda - largely blame governments and
national agencies for failing to control the effluent
and other waste that pours into the water every
day.
John Omolo, 35, who has worked for two
decades as a fisherman in the lakeside Kenyan
city of Kisumu, says he now fishes only twice a
week instead of every day, as he did when fish
were still abundant just three years ago.
"The impact of the fall in fish stocks is felt on the
dinner table, with tilapia selling at twice the price
that it fetched three years ago," says the father of
four.
The price rise hits consumers in the Lake Victoria
basin - home to 30 million people, a figure
demographers expect to double in 15 years - but
is not enough to compensate Omolo for his
smaller catches.
Mike Obadha, fisheries officer in Kenya's Kisumu
county, says that more than half of the 60,000
Kenyan fishermen who make a living from the
lake fear being left jobless because of a fall in the
stocks of all fish species, but particularly tilapia
and Nile perch.