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The use of Mara River Basin resources by humans
is unavoidable, but the current nature and scale of
utilization is unsustainable. Rapid land-use change
has occurred since 1975, as evidenced in the satellite
images. The development of irrigation farming
along the Mara River has led to a loss of riverine
forests, the fragmentation of wildlife habitats and
the extraction of water from the Mara River for
agricultural purposes. In an attempt to curb the
destruction of the Mara River ecosystem, many local
and international stakeholders have been actively
involved in a variety of conservation initiatives within
the Basin in a bid to devolve the management of the
Basin’s resources to the grass roots levels.