Rivers usually start as insignificant: highland streams and tiny rivulets that join, gradually merging with other rivulets, slowly forming larger and larger streams until finally, full bodied rivers.  All this, from the billions of tiny droplets of rain that fall yearly from the skies, almost like magic. The Great Ruaha River is no different. It has a long, long winding path over hundreds of kilometers, passing through diverse lands and people.

 

This story of a degraded river is not unlike many stories of rivers world-wide, where water is essential to agriculture. Agriculture that renders once massive, perennial flows of life-giving water to a mere trickles for much of the time and then total dryness.  Perhaps we are all guilty of not opening our eyes to the bigger picture, the country-wide, West to East view that this river spans. 

 

For if a river spans that far, then surely our gaze should follow suit?  To ignore the ‘wholeness’ of anything is to ignore its continuity, its life.  This river once gave life to many diverse people, activities and landscapes yet today it is being largely used  for growing rice and a few other small crops. This takes place in a comparatively small area of the country, with a comparatively small number of people. It no longer has the capacity to serve the great number of inhabitants it used to along the way .

 

The question remains is this right? or is it wrong?  Or perhaps there is somewhere in between. In amongst the reasoning's of ‘shoulds’ and ‘shouldn’t’s  surely there is a balance that can be found?

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Personally, I am a great believer in balance. To me balance is the word we need to observe in every area of our own personal lives, and then in the same way, it can be extrapolated to the life of the planet.  After all, we are all one and the same, Planet Earth, is our home, we cannot exist with out it, so surely it is in our interests to look after it as kindly and as lovingly as we look after our own families? 

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It is not difficult to see that the rice growing activities have severely affected this river. I don’t believe it is possible to shy away from this fact.  However, I do believe that it is possible to grow rice and have a flowing river. My very humble observations over the years have indicated to me that the drastic lack of dry season flow is more to do with poor water management than anything else.

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In 2009 this notion of mine was proved correct. It was the second year Ruaha National Park had secured its new boundaries, encompassing the Usangu wetland. Anxious to improve the dry season flows, the Park started a small pilot scheme, which ensured that the relevant gates flowing into the paddies along the in the Ndembera river were closed, and bingo, this simple act was enough to ensure that the Ruaha River flowed though the park all year. Though the flow was extremely small, it was enough to prove that it is possible to change the situation, merely by being a little more careful.

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However, from the year 2000, the high level, wet season flows, e.g., the times when the river annually flooded its banks, suddenly stopped.  These wet season flows were no longer high, often times they are never even bank to bank!  Because of this huge loss of wet season water, the river’s integrity became severely affected, not only in the dry season but also in the wet season.  It was then, in 2000, that the whole nature, the ‘Great’ part of the Ruaha river died. These annual wet season floods were incredibly important to the rivers' ecology, and as a result  the river bed itself has changed almost unrecognizably since that time.  Now we only see these huge flows in an ‘el niño’ year. 

 

Throughout all of 2000, many small and subtle changes began to take place within the river ecosystem and the Mtera Dam water level began to suffer. This indicated to me, that the volume of farmers irrigating land in the wet season had suddenly exploded.

 

This continues to happen, and in my view, this is not sustainable. Certainly not if one wants to maintain a flowing river that will reach the Indian Ocean and continue to serve many inhabitants on its long and winding course.  Also, it is important to note that currently our eyes are fixed on the farmers in Usangu. However it won't be long before they are suffering too, like the Ruaha National Park is suffering, due to the number of farmers further up stream from them, in the highland watershed, is growing with alarming speed.