LAKE VICTORIA BASIN

TheMara River Basin, Kenya andTanzania

Extraction of irrigation water along the Mara River

poses a major threat to the Serengeti-Mara ecosystem.

The Mara River Basin extends over 13,750 km², of

which 70 per cent lies within Narok County in Kenya,

and 30 per cent within the Serengeti National Park in

Tanzania (Lake Victoria Basin Commission 2007). The

Mara River originates on the Mau escarpment in Kenya

and has two major tributaries, the Nyangores and

Amala River, which carry the headwaters to the more

arid lands downstream and support pastoralists and a

large population of wildlife. The rivers converge at the

base of the escarpment to form the upper Mara River,

which flows along a gentle gradient through wooded

grasslands used primarily for livestock grazing but also

increasingly for small-scale and irrigated agriculture

(Lake Victoria Basin Commission 2007).

Human activities within the Mara River Basin are

negatively impacting the world’s greatest annual

wildlife migration across the East African plains. The

annual migration of almost two million wildebeest and

other wildlife across Tanzania’s legendary Serengeti

National Park and Kenya’s renowned Maasai Mara

National Reserve is a key tourist attraction, generating

large annual incomes UNEP 2009).

Mara River winding across the Serengeti Savanna, Tanzania