History

Lake Victoria has been known to the indigenous people of its surrounding areas for thousands of years but was not discovered by the europeans until 1858.  A British explorer names John Hanning Speke discovered the lake after spending months trekking through thick dangerous rainforest in search of the source of the Nile River.  Speke names the Lake Victoria after the late Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom.  Speke's claim that this lake was the source of the Nile was only a proclamation and not confirmed until 1875.  During this time another British explorer by the name of Henry Stanley spent two weeks traveling around the lake and finally confirmed Speke's hypothesis.  Stanley's findings were then sent back to England and they began to expand the colonization process towards the lake.

By 1902 England has built a railroad from Mombasa, Kenya to the lake to assist in trading.  Soon after the colonial powers had stripped Lake Victoria os its vast watersheds to plans cash crops such as coffee, sugar and tobacco.  With this increased trade the population surrounding the lake grew exponentially and the lake was looked at to support this population.  Fishing was now a major necessity and soon overfishing was present.  With the introduction of smaller mesh fishing nets the fisherman were catching fish of all ages drastically impacting their reproductive abilities.  With lake Victoria new obligation to irrigate cash crops and to provide fish for the population increase its resources were stretched thin.  This was the beginning of years of abuse that has lead Lake Victoria to it current fragile state.

All information retrieved from:  http://www1.american.edu/ted/victoria.htm, http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/lake_victoria_sick.php, http://elev8.com/files/2011/05/past-present-future-sign1.jpg & http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Victoria