John Speke, a British explorer claimed to discover Lake Victoria in east Africa in 1858. The Arabs actually recorded in their map earlier sometime around 1160s. Today Lake Victoria like a diseased lake with up and down invasion by the world’s most invasive plant, water hyacinth or technically known as Eichhornia crassipes.
Water Hyacinth
The water hyacinth, a native of the tropical Americas, was introduced by Belgian colonists to Rwanda to beautify their holdings and then ‘advanced’ by natural means to Lake Victoria where it was ‘first sighted’ or specifically introduced in 1988.
In the 70s and 80s, the issues of polluted water bodies had been a highlight. It has became a norm that lakes polluted with excessive nutrients from agricultural and industrial activities can be corrected with the introduction of aquatic plants. True to the sense that aquatic plants like the water hyacinth can extract nutrients in water so as to flourish. Aquatic plants like the water hyacinth was accepted as natural water filter.
From there, researchers were obssessed with using aquatic plants to improve naturally polluted water bodies and wertlands. In the 1980s fundings were strong to support such activities. Japanese’s JICA provided research funds to local universities to study water quality improvement by aquatic plants. Artificial wetlands were created thinking that such will improved the water quality in some watersheds. Can this be true?
Sadly, this invasive water hyacinth became a nuisance rather than a heavenly gift. They spread rapidly suffocating the lake, therefore, led to diminishing fish landing, blocking water transportation, reservoir, and hurting the local economies. Worst of all, the plants shelter mosquitoes and snails and spread diseases like malaria and particularly bilharzia which is a chronic disease that can damage internal organs and, in children, impair growth.
For any eco-design or eco-concept, if they were to apply into a particular project, care and study are required to be considered carefully otherwise the project could end up to become an eco-disaster. No matter how small a project, the element of water is always a living body that had been years ‘murdered chemically’ especially with chlorine and being left to rot in sewerage ponds, disrespectfully and offensively forced into pipes and stripped of its honour by making consumer at homes to install the so-called best drinking water filtration system. What say you?
Lets not do another Lake Victoria which is never victorious ecologically.
Filed under: Landscaping, Miscellaneous, Nature pool, Non-chlorinated Swim Pool, Pond Management, Stories from the Past, Water Garden Tagged: | eco design, eco-concept, lake management, water filter
