A recent article in the news tells about the Itare Dam, a foreign direct investment dam planned in the Mau Forest that will impact the headwaters of the Mara River. The article claims that the government did not conduct a…
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Upstream Impacts on Lower Mara River
In any shared basin there are upstream and downstream impacts that can affect users of the shared water resources. These impacts, sometimes called “drivers”, range from policy and economic activity, to pollution and diversion actions. The Mau Forest Complex, the largest…
Subsistence Economies on the Mara River
The SELVA team found on our fieldtrip in March 2016, that subsistence communities are the majority of stakeholders in the lower Mara River Basin in Tanzania. Subsistence is an economic term that refers to when a person or people work to…
The Kurya People
The largest ethnic group living in the lower Mara River Basin, Tanzania, are the Kurya People; a Bantu speaking people with possible Nilotic origins. The Kurya are an ethnic minority of about approximately 700,000-1,000,000 people living in a collection of subtribal…
Happy World Mara Day!
Written by: Ana Lemos Thursday, September 15 is world Mara Day– a day that celebrates the Mara River and the world famous Mara landscape. As a nod to the transboundary nature of the Mara River, the 10th Sectoral Council of…
Mara River Basin is a Transboundary Basin
The Mara River Basin stretches across territory in Kenya and Tanzania making it a transboundary basin. There are more than 300 transboundary basins throughout the world. Many of these are shared by just two countries like the Mara. However, even…
Erosion in the Mara River Basin
Erosion is a major challenge to the Mara River Basin, as identified by the Lake Victoria Basin Water Offices (LVBWO) in Mwanza. The SELVA team, working with the Tanzanian Ministry of Water in Dar es Salaam and the LVBWO, looked…
Local Importance of the Mara River
The Mara River holds essential important because it is a water resource for local human and ecological communities. As a water resource, the Mara provides year round, albeit inconsistent, flow. The river reflects seasonal flow and level fluctuations due to whether it is…
Water Borne Disease and Human Health in the Mara
The SELVA team traveled throughout the Lower Mara River Basin in Tanzania to collect data from water users about their water access, water quality, and water quantity and encountered chonga moto – Swahili for challenges – related to water and…
Fetching Water on a Saturday Morning
On a typical Saturday morning in Miami, you can find children playing on the beach, in the yard, or on their tablet in the living room. On a typical Saturday morning in rural parts of the Mara River Basin in…
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