Proceedings of the 11th World Lakes Conference, Nairobi, Kenya, 31 October to 4th November 2005

Abstract

The International Conference on the Conservation and Management of Lakes (World Lake Conference) is a biennial conference co-organised by ILEC and a local host. Previous conferences have been held in Japan, USA, Hungary, China, Italy, Argentina and Denmark. In 2005 the Conference moved to Kenya and was held in Africa for the first time. This conference was held from 31 October to 4 November 2005 in Nairobi, Kenya. The organisers of the conference were the Ministry of Water and Irrigation, Kenya; the International Lake Environment Committee Foundation, Japan; and Pan African START Secretariat, Nairobi, Kenya. The main theme of the Conference was “Management of Lake Basins for Their Sustainable Use: Global Experiences and African Issues”. The principle objective of the 11th World Lake Conference was to bring together diverse groups of people and organizations dealing with lakes to provide a rich forum for exchange of knowledge and experiences on the management of lakes in general and African lakes in particular, noting that African lakes contribute significantly to socio-economic development of the African region but are subject to high levels of rapid population growth, urbanization, industrialization, mining development, growth of irrigated agriculture, and impacts of climate change. These pressures have altered ecosystem processes and resulted in several threats on the lakes including: loss of biodiversity, over-fishing, eutrophication, proliferation of invasive weeds, siltation toxic contamination and over-abstraction of water. To ensure their sustainable use, these important but fragile ecosystems need to be managed properly. The Conference reviewed progress on ongoing lake basin initiatives as well as set future goals for lake basin management.