The Omo-Turkana Landscape

Anchored by UNESCO-listed Lake Turkana and fed by Ethiopia’s Omo River, this dramatic volcanic–savannah landscape faces mounting pressures from dams, overuse, and climate stress yet holds real promise for sustainable fisheries, community-led conservation, eco-tourism, and Kenya–Ethiopia cooperation.

The Omo-Turkana landscape stretches across northern Kenya and southern Ethiopia, anchored by Lake Turkana — the world’s largest desert lake and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. This starkly beautiful yet fragile landscape combines dramatic volcanic formations, semi-arid savannahs, and a vast inland sea that has long been a lifeline for both people and nature.

At the heart of this system is the Omo River, Ethiopia’s second largest river, which provides more than 90% of Lake Turkana’s inflow. A cascade of large dams and irrigation schemes along the Omo has been designed to generate hydropower and water supply for vast sugarcane and cotton plantations. While these investments aim to drive economic growth in Ethiopia, they also bring risks downstream: reduced seasonal floods, altered sediment flows, and fears among communities in Kenya that the lake could shrink further, with devastating consequences for people and nature.

Lake Turkana itself is unique. Its saline, alkaline waters cannot be used for drinking or irrigation, yet the lake sustains one of East Africa’s most important inland fisheries, providing food security and livelihoods for tens of thousands of people in an otherwise water-scarce region. For generations, fishing communities — many of them pastoralists who combine livestock herding with seasonal fishing — have depended on the lake’s abundance. But in recent decades, declining inflows, falling lake levels, and overfishing have placed this vital resource under severe pressure.

Beyond fisheries, the landscape supports pastoralist and agro-pastoralist livelihoods, adapted to the harsh climate. These communities are highly vulnerable to climate change: droughts are becoming longer and more intense, livestock losses are more frequent, and competition over scarce resources can exacerbate tensions. The resilience of these societies is tightly linked to the health of the Omo-Turkana ecosystem.

Ecologically, Lake Turkana is a jewel of biodiversity. It is home to some of the world’s largest populations of Nile crocodiles and hosts hippos, endemic fish species, and massive flocks of waterbirds. It is a critical stopover on the African-Eurasian migratory bird flyway, linking ecosystems from northern Europe and Asia to southern Africa. Central Island and Sibiloi National Parks, together with the South Island, form the UNESCO-listed Lake Turkana National Parks, renowned for their volcanic landscapes, breeding colonies of flamingos, and fossil sites that shed light on human evolution. This unique landscape therefor also attracts tourists, a very important business within this region.

Looking ahead, the Omo-Turkana landscape sits at a crossroads. On one hand, it faces mounting pressures from dam development, land-use change, climate variability, and population growth. On the other, it holds remarkable opportunities: safeguarding fisheries through sustainable management, strengthening community-based conservation, developing eco-tourism around its unique wildlife and cultural heritage, and promoting transboundary cooperation between Kenya and Ethiopia.