The lake is also the World Wildlife Fund East African halophytics ecoregion. The group working under the umbrella name Lake Natron Consultative Group is being co-ordinated by Ken Mwathe, Conservation Programme Manager at BirdLife International's Africa Secretariat.Īs per communication on June 2008, Tata Chemicals shall not proceed with the Natron Project and further re-examination of this project will be subject to the Ramsar Wetlands plan, which is currently under preparation.īecause of its unique biodiversity, Tanzania named the Lake Natron Basin to the Ramsar List of Wetlands of International Importance on 4 July 2001. Currently a group of more than fifty East African conservation and environmental institutions are running a worldwide campaign to stop the planned construction of the soda ash factory by Tata Chemicals Ltd of Mumbai, India and National Development Corporation of Tanzania. Seventy-five percent of the world's lesser flamingoes are born on Lake Natron. This development will leave lesser flamingoes in East Africa facing extinction'. In addition, there is a possibility the developers may introduce a hybrid brine shrimp to increase the efficiency of extraction.Īccording to Chris Magin, the RSPB's international officer for Africa, 'The chance of the lesser flamingoes continuing to breed in the face of such mayhem are next to zero. Accompanying the plant would be housing for over 1000 workers, and a coal-fired power station to provide energy for the plant complex. The plant would pump water from the lake and extract the sodium carbonate to convert to washing powder for export. There is no formal protection.Ī new threat to Lake Natron is the proposed development of a soda ash plant on its shores. Although development plans include constructions of a dike at the north end of the lake to contain the freshwater, the threat of dilution to this breeding ground may still be serious. Threats to the salinity balance from increased siltation influxes will come from more projected logging in Natron watersheds and a planned hydroelectric power plant on the Ewaso Nyiro across the border in Kenya. The area around the salt lake is not inhabited but there is some herding and some seasonal cultivation. This has allowed the lake to concentrate into a caustic alkaline brine. The lavas have significant amounts of carbonate but very low calcium and magnesium levels.

The surrounding bedrock is composed of alkaline, sodium-dominated trachyte lavas that were laid down during the Pleistocene period. The alkalinity of the lake can reach a pH of greater than 12. High levels of evaporation have left behind natron (sodium carbonate decahydrate) and trona (sodium sesquicarbonate dihydrate). Temperatures at the lake are frequently above. The surrounding area receives irregular seasonal rainfall, mainly between December and May totalling per year.

It is quite shallow, less than deep, and varies in width depending on its water level. The lake is fed principally by the Southern Ewaso Ng'iro River, which rises in central Kenya, and by mineral-rich hot springs. The lake is within the Lake Natron Basin, a Ramsar Site wetland of international significance. It is in the Gregory Rift, which is the eastern branch of the East African Rift.

Lake Natron is a salt or alkaline lake in Arusha Region in Tanzania.

Lake natron in africa