TIMAU RIVER wildlife corridor
Timau River resident leopards, swimming (playing) hyena’s and warthogs
challenges
Over-Extraction of River Water
Mt. Kenya is under intense pressure from rapid population growth.
Water over-extraction has up to 90% of river water diverted before reaching Mt. Kenya’s lower park boundary.
96% of 259 water users on the Timau River are unmetered, 81% exceed authorized volumes, and 18 extract as much water as the other 241 combined (TRP, 2022).
The collapse of riparian ecoservices, such as rain and river water retention and runoff filtering, adversely affects all dependent life, including humans.
Timau River dry season water intake, leaving no water past the intake
loss of wildlife habitat
River water shortage contributes to lowland pastoralist driving thousands of cows to Mt Kenya each dry season. Livestock numbers on Mt Kenya increased tenfold between 2016 and 2020. The largest livestock influx comes from the Timau Basin in Laikipia;
The Timau Basin is the largest source of the Ewaso Ng’iro, traversing Laikipia and Samburu.
Riparian lands are legally protected, but suffer from illegal tree cutting, river sand harvesting, over-grazing and agricultural tilling. This destroys river ecosystem services at the detriment of all life depending on them.
Mt Kenya, main rivers in the Laikipia/Samburu ecosystem and the Timau River, WT
loss of wildlife corridors
Riparian lands prior to human impact are biodiversity-rich and function as natural wildlife corridors and/or important wildlife dispersal areas. Many rivers naturally connect highlands to lowlands and are used/or offer refuge for migrating large mammals.
Protecting those rivers means protecting wildlife corridors and ecosystem services.
Timau River visiting elephants
solutions
collaborative efforts
In 2019 WT and conservation partners decided to reverse the decline of one river in the Timau Basin and promote it as a wildlife corridor.
A riparian land-use survey ensued of five important rivers in the Timau Basin: Sirimon, Teleswani, Ontulili, Timau and Nanyuki Rivers.
The Timau River stood out for its richness in animal and tree species.
Timau River animal species richness, 2020
Timau River bird species richness, 2020
Timau River tree species richness, 2020
REVERSING THE DECLINE OF THE TIMAU RIVER
Riverbank restoration project
Bank restoration
In 2026 Wilderthings developed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Timau River Water Resource Use Association (WRUA) to reverse the decline of the river, through:
Riparian joint patrols, Wilderthings/WRUA
Regular joint patrols will be conducted to enforce riparian rules and regulations, to stop illegal tree cutting for timber, fuelwood and charcoal and to stop illegal abstraction of river water.
Tree planting and combating erosion
In dry season WT employees identify areas of severe erosion, and restore/ stabilize the riverbanks using gabion sausages. These are 17m long nets filled with stones and earth (allowing grasses and other plants to develop their roots). When erosion is extensive several of those sausages are stacked on top of one another (see picture).
In wet seasons, water levels can be high and further restoration work is then focused on planting of grasses and trees in degraded areas.
Incentivising riverine communities to plant woodlots, capture and store rainwater
WT supports the development of woodlots on farms to remove the need to cut riparian trees for fuelwood,
WT equally promotes the catching and storing of rainwater from roofs, and by digging shallow ditches on sloping land to slow water run-off. Doing so, allows for grasses to establish on previously barren lands (see picture)
Overgrazed land BEFORE trapping runoff water
The same land AFTER introducing grazing schedules to avoid over grazing and shallow ditches trapping rain water