Water hyacinth, a free-floating aquatic weed, continues to conquer hectares and hectares of water surface in Lake Victoria. Today, over 40 sq. kilometers within Kenyan territorial waters alone is under a thick mat of water hyacinth. The result of this invasion is an ecological disaster with far reaching socio-economic impacts.
East African governments are making effort to eradicate the weed, but time is running out on the world’s second largest freshwater ecosystem. Whatever they do, a nature-based solution is inevitable.