Calls to boycott flowers from farms in Kenya intensify after child death

Calls for a boycott of flowers from farms around Lake Naivasha in Kenya, one of the world's top flower exporters, have intensified after a child of 12 drowned in an irrigation channel.

Green campaigners in Kenya have been urging a boycott of flowers from some 30 farms contributing to the degradation of Lake Naivasha and Maasai herders have also complained that the farms have closed natural corridors, making it impossible for them to water their livestock.

On Thursday, a 12-year-old Maasai boy herding livestock on the lake shore slipped into an irrigation channel and drowned, causing irate pastoralists to go on the rampage with machetes in protest at the death.

The Maasai tried to burn a farm truck and attacked a water board official who came to investigate. A paramilitary police unit shot into the air to disperse them.

Andrew Ole Korinko, a local leader, said the death could have been avoided.

"We have for many days complained over the danger posed by these channels but the government says we are antagonising investors," he complained to AFP.

"We are ready to stop these farmers from farming in our ancestral land as all they are doing is enslaving us through cheap labour."

Environmentalist James Kahora vowed that he would mobilise locals to cover the dozens of channels around the lake.

The lake, some 60 miles northw est of Nairobi, is a stunning freshwater lake considered one of the top 10 bird-watching spots in the world and one of the continent's jewels of bio-diversity.

Environmentalists and biologists say that water extraction by the dozens of flower farms around the lake has contributed to a sharp decline in water levels that will eventually destroy the local ecosystem.

Many of the sprawling flower farms around Lake Naivasha and across the country are foreign-owned and send tonnes of roses and other flowers daily to European capitals and other markets such as Japan.

The horticultural sector is one of Kenya's top exporters but wildlife tourism is also a key source of revenue for the east African country.