For the last two years, the Lake Naivasha Growers' Group (LNGG), a local watchdog registered in 1997 to strive to balance commercial interests an environmentally sustainable use of resources of Lake Naivasha, has held discussions with the Naivasha Municipal Council (MCN) on ways to provide a more coordinated framework to assist the council in meeting the demand of a rapidly growing population around the lake.

The response has been overwhelming. The industry is already doing much to assist community service and the present Municipal Council executives and LNGG have agreed to a formal understanding to contributre regularly and financially to the Council’s activities.

The Naivasha council has given LNGG the green light to participate in the identification of projects and accounting of the funds so contributed.

Equally encouraging is the fact that a number of businesses who are not members of LNGG have shown willingness to contribute and several smaller businesses have recognized that contributing to this combined fund is a means to ensure that development projects are implemented in the lakeside town.

Recently, a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed by the LNGG chairman Mr Richard Fox and the Naivasha Municipal Council Clerk Shadrack Mulanga at the Naivasha sports club, during which the group presented the clerk with a cheque for Sh10 million, as tax levy for 2009.

The group as also instrumental in the formation of the Lake Naivasha Water Resource Users' Association (LANAWRUA) that was constituted under the Water Act (2002) to encourage local participation in the management of the lake's water resources.

Since its formation in 2007, LANAWRUA has drafted a Water Allocation Plan and a sub-Catchment Management Plan (SCMP) that are both currently under review by the Water Resources Management Authority (WRMA) and in cooperation with WRMA has conducted a water abstraction survey of the lake, to be extended into the catchment as a whole.