Water Is Personal (Black & White Edit)

LAKE TURKANA, NORTHERN KENYA, MAY 2010: Dasenetch pastoralist people with their catch of Tilapia fish in Lake Turkana in North Kenya, 20 May 2010. Fishing is a relatively new phenomenon for the Dasenetch, drought and climate change have forced them to look further than cattle for alternative sources of sustenance and economy. Fishing has become the primary means in the Lake Turkana region but has yet to reach any real commercial significance. The lake is the largest desert lake in the world and sustains both Turkana and Dasenetch people as well as Gabra and other tribes in the region. Lake Turkana faces an uncertain future however as the Gibe 3 dam project in Ethiopia, a massive hydro-electric scheme and Ethiopia's biggest single investment, comes on line. The dam project, designed to create electricity for sale to surrounding countries including Kenya, will reduce the flow of the Omo river dramatically and this river is the main feeder river for Lake Turkana. Significant changes in lake levels and in ecology can be expected as a result. Fertile flood plain invaluable for agriculture will also be negatively impacted. All of this bodes badly for the pastoralists of the Lake Turkana and Southern Ethiopia's Omo river region, these groups are already under severe subsistence pressure and there is a long history of armed conflict in the region. Weapons flow in to this region through Sudan and Somalia and there is little control over this trade which looks likely to accelerate if pressures increase in this region. At this time the Dam project has full support from Kenya's Nairobi government, despite the fact that there has been no Environmental Impact Assesment produced for this scheme. (Photo by Brent Stirton/Getty Images Reportage)