Pharmaceutical waste blamed for dwindling fish reserves

Weak government oversight and economic dependence means polluters across the continent have not been held to account which breaks a cardinal rule of environmental law – the principle that the polluter pays. A Mail & Guardian report notes that Lake Victoria, the second largest freshwater lake in the world, is producing about 120 000 metric tons of fish annually compared with the 180 000 produced in 2010. That's according to statistics from the Kenya Marine and Fisheries Institute. And scientists are linking the dwindling fish population in the lake to pharmaceutical waste. The pharmaceutically active compounds, also known as endocrine disrupting hormones, interfere with the physiological frameworks of aquatic organisms, with fish species more profoundly affected. ‘Our research and data show that these chemicals may be responsible for the dwindling fish population in the lake by interfering with the hormonal balance in fish and thereby negatively affecting their breeding,’ said Eric Ogello, a fisheries and aquaculture specialist at Kenya’s Maseno University.