Water Ministry Shifts Weed-Clearing Burden to Local Institutions

May 31 , 2025. By NAHOM AYELE ( FORTUNE STAFF WRITER )

The Ministry of Water & Energy has announced plans to enlist institutions located near affected water bodies and assign them responsibility for reducing the invasive water hyacinth presence through localised stewardship. Officials hope this approach will succeed where past efforts have faltered.

Lakes and rivers face an escalating ecological crisis as water hyacinth spreads across the country.

The urgency of the problem was laid bare last week in Parliament, where Habtamu Itefa (PhD), the minister of Water & Energy, appeared before federal lawmakers to answer questions. Minister Habtamu acknowledged the severity of the infestation.

“Our water bodies are in serious trouble,” he said, noting that major lakes such as Tana, Zeway, Koka, Abaya, and Chamo have all fallen prey to extensive hyacinth mats. “Despite years of intervention, Lake Tana remains heavily infested.”

The Minister conceded that past campaigns, which relied solely on manual removal, yielded limited results. The need for a new model that could slow, and eventually reverse, the tide of invasive growth rather than merely manage it was hotly debated in Parliament. As an example of a potential solution, according to the Minister, is a pilot effort at Lake Zeway, where authorities have granted official nod over specific sections of the lake to local institutions. These institutions are now designated with clearing hyacinth within their boundaries.

Authorities disclosed that roughly 1,000hct of lake Zeway is currently covered with water hyacinth, yet only 89hct have been cleared in the past nine months. The Oromia Water & Energy Bureau, has set a target to clear 130hct by the end of the fiscal year, pressing local institutions to increase their efforts in the coming months to meet the goal. Achieving this will require not only funding for removal campaigns but also coordination among multiple parties to prevent re-infestation.

“We're encouraging a sense of ownership,” Habtamu said.

Officials say this decentralised approach could make removal campaigns more efficient by leveraging local knowledge and commitment.

Among those voicing alarm was Almaz Wedajo (MP), who criticised the Ministry’s labour-intensive removal campaigns as "inefficient" and called for a long-term strategy to safeguard water resources.

“Manual removal alone is not enough,” she said. "A more sustainable approach is needed to protect lakes and rivers from further degradation."

The water hyacinth, native to the Amazon Basin, has posed environmental problems across tropical and subtropical regions since the late 19th Century. It thrives in stagnant and flowing waters, forming dense mats that block sunlight, disrupt gas exchange and choke aquatic ecosystems. The weed was first identified in Ethiopia in 1965 in Lake Koka and along the Awash River. It has steadily spread to other water bodies, with Lake Tana suffering heavy infestations since 2011.

According to Teshale Bekana, director of Water Resources Management at the Oromia Water & Energy Bureau, financial constraints have compelled regional authorities to transfer weed management duties to local institutions.

“It's no longer viable for the government to manage this alone,” he told Fortune. “Institutions that directly benefit from the lakes must step up.”

He urged hotels, resorts, and even flower farms to share the burden if any progress is to be made.

Experts say the plant’s rapid reproduction rate, one of the fastest among flowering plants, compounds the difficulty of containment.

Some private operators around infested lakes have taken matters into their own hands.

At Green Valley Resort on Lake Zeway, the resort was granted stewardship over a designated section of the lake and launched an intensive cleanup effort last year.

“We began intensive clean-up work over the past year as part of our social responsibility,” said Shambel Hirpo, the manager.

Its labour force daily clears the choking vegetation by hand and with small watercraft.

“The weed directly threatens the very allure of lakeside destinations that depend on pristine waters to attract visitors," he told Fortune.

Similar concerns were echoed by Gadisa Girma, managing director of Haile Resorts & Hotels Group, which operates a lodge along Lake Zeway’s shoreline. The Group has funded its own weed-clearing campaigns without government support, spending over half a million Birr last year, employing day labourers to remove the hyacinth. Gadisa warned that if resorts are left to carry the burden alone, “the cost will outstrip any profit we make.”

His voice exposes that the spread of water hyacinth is not merely an environmental challenge, but also a threat to tourism revenues and private investment in lakefront properties.

A 2019 study conducted by the Bahir Dar Institute of Technology, jointly with the Water Resources, Irrigation & Energy Bureau of the Amhara Regional State, revealed that the economic cost of removing water hyacinth over the 13-year period from 2000 was approximately 100,000 dollars. The study found that ongoing infestations resulted in lost income for fishermen, reduced tourism revenues, and increased public spending on removal efforts. For residents of Lake Tana, the cost is especially acute. Fishing has become perilous, and boat transport is often made impossible by thick floating mats of vegetation that trap nets and damage hulls. Researchers warn that unchecked infestations could push already vulnerable fish populations to collapse.

In northeastern Ethiopia, agricultural productivity in floodplains has also declined as the weed proliferates in rivers and irrigation canals.

Critics echo the criticisms of Parliamentarians that current efforts led by the Ministry of Water & Energy are largely palliative rather than curative.

Fasil Eshetu, a lecturer at Arba Minch University and a researcher in aquatic ecology, warned that eradication efforts will falter unless they address the root causes of the infestation.

“Manual removal treats the symptoms, not the disease,” Fasil said. "Without tackling the factors that fuel hyacinth growth, any gains from cutting and hauling the weed will be reversed as new hyacinth quickly fills cleared areas."

Fasil urged policymakers to focus on protecting the source areas of rivers and lakes from agricultural encroachment and deforestation, activities that contribute to nutrient-rich runoff ideal for water hyacinth proliferation. He called on the authorities to enforce restrictions on farming along riverbanks and to initiate large-scale conservation projects to restore natural buffer zones around water bodies. He believes that rehabilitating upstream ecosystems can contain water hyacinth in the long term, rather than merely shifting the problem from one lake to another.

“Fertiliser discharge and soil erosion are creating perfect conditions for these weeds to thrive,” he said.

PUBLISHED ON May 31,2025 [ VOL 26 , NO 1309]