Recent reports of cholera outbreaks in Turkana and parts of Nyanza are clear indicators that our water quality is compromised and a source of killer diseases.

This year’s World Water Day, whose theme was Clean Water for a Healthy World brought home the painful reality that millions of Kenyans and more than 1 billion people in developing countries are forced to rely on unsafe drinking water.

Hundreds of Kenyans are dying or getting their limbs amputated after snakebites even as dozens of doses of anti-venom vaccines lie unutilized in government hospitals, some within a kilometre from their homes.

Those who have been amputated after failing to get the vaccine are instead trooping to Kenya Wildlife Service to seek compensation.

Can you imagine keeping a snake, an animal considered by millions of people as evil and of deceit character as a pet? This is exactly what officials at a government outfit who care for snakes are requesting Kenyans to do.

Concerned with the high numbers of snakes dying due to the current cold weather or those being killed by people in Nairobi, officers at the National Museums of Kenya are now appealing to those who find snakes in their houses to treat them humanely and as pets.

Kenyan farmers will soon be required to plant trees on at least 10 per cent of their agricultural land.

According to the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture, this will be the only way to mitigate the effects of climate change.