In 2013, the global Water Partnership Project, a project aimed at sustaining the Nile basin in East African Region, has launched a research which revealed challenges affecting East African Countries sharing Nile Basin.
This 2013 report has revealed among the challenges flooding which caused material loss, destructed agricultural activities and result into hunger and famine in some parts of our countries and caused human death in most of East African Countries.
Among root causes of climate changes, the report said that climate is increasingly changing form many factors like population increase and human activities which are contributing to forest degradation.
The report suggested measures to overcome consequences associated to climate change in Nile Basin like launching a fund to support survivors of flooding disasters and starting projects of protecting shore of rivers. Consequently Rwanda has launched big projects of protecting river shores as a way of avoiding soil erosion and prevents water from being polluted.
The partnership of Rwanda Environmental Management Authority (REMA) and Fond National Pour l’ Environment au Rwanda (FONERWA) and other institutions aimed at preserving environment, has launched a project of protecting Congo Nile Peak. Starting April of 2017, this project has started cultivating bamboo trees along Nyabarongo River.
This project will last for many years and will beyond cultivating bamboos, care for highland region by creating terraces with aim protecting soil erosion.
Within this project, we will also make terraces and plant anti-erosion trees in highland regions and encourage farmers to cultivate trees mixed by other crops and we hope these initiatives will prevent soil erosion which may damage crops in farms and pollute Nyabarongo water.
Lake Victoria Environmental Management Project (LVEMP) is another project undertook to preserve rivers flowing in Lake Victoria. This project also has funds designed to preserve Nyabarongo River and other rivers flowing in it. LVEMP II is a project of REMA through this project; bamboo trees will be planted alongside Nyabarongo cost to avoid soil erosion and polluting water of this river. These plants will also serve in purification of water flowing from mountains around Nyabarongo River when it is raining.
These are two of the biggest projects that are being implemented by the Rwandan government aimed at preserving environment and fighting against disasters associated to climate change in East African Region and cleaning water of Nile River for effective use among countries benefitting from Nile water.
In Rwanda, Nyabarongo River is considered as the source of Nile while other deep researches like that of 2006 have proved that the furthest Nile source is hidden in the Natural Forest of Nyungwe in Gisovu, the side of Karongi district.
There are thousand reasons for protecting Nile water source as the river which nourish water all African countries located in desert region like Soudan, Ethiopia and Egypt whereby Nile water is used in agricultural activities by watering crops.
