KALOKOL, Kenya — Rake-thin with teeth stained a deep brown from decades of drinking untreated lake water high in fluoride, 62-year-old John Esirite sits in the shade outside the small office of Kalokol’s Beach Management Unit, or BMU, the community-run body that oversees local fisheries. “The old office used to be down there,” the fisherman says, pointing toward the western shoreline of Lake Turkana, the world’s largest permanent desert lake, just visible a couple of kilometers away. “But now it’s underwater.” Over the last 15 years, Lake Turkana has risen by about 8-10 meters (26-33 feet). That’s increased its surface area by around 10%. In and around the fishing hub of Kalokol, hundreds of people have been displaced by this steady advance. In Esirite’s case, the village where he grew up, Natole, has long since been abandoned. The fisherman has had to relocate three times since 2014, pushed ever farther from his ancestral land and the nearshore breeding grounds he has fished for most of his life. “We are suffering, but no one is helping us,” he says. “We can only pray to God for assistance.” But even the church where Esirite used to pray is underwater. What is happening in Kalokol is part of a wider trend. Since the early 2010s, many lakes across Kenya’s Rift Valley have flooded, their expansion accelerating after particularly heavy rains in 2020, forcing tens of thousands from their homes. But here, in this long-neglected northern corner of the country, the human and environmental…This article was originally published on Mongabay