Kenya has a large diversity of ecological zones and habitats, including lowland and mountain forests, wooded and open grasslands, semi-arid scrublands, dry woodlands, inland aquatic as well as coastal and marine ecosystems which are home to an enormous diversity of wildlife species, and which provide numerous goods and services that drive the country's socio-economic development.
However, over the past few years, the country has been undergoing dynamic land use and land cover changes leading to land degradation, that is threatening the livelihoods of millions of people who depend on land ecosystem goods and services for their sustenance. The underlying drivers of land degradation are manifold. Increasing human population pressure subjects land to intense pressure leading to degradation. High population growth rates have increased the demand for ecosystem goods and services. The high population pressure fuels expansion of agricultural area to meet food demands and also for economic development of the rural populations. This has led to expansion of cropland into marginal areas, pastureland and forest lands and steep slopes. Pressure on fragile ecosystems has led to increased land degradation, which has resulted in increased sedimentation of water bodies from soil erosion, decreased infiltration rates of the land from deforestation, reduced water quality and ability of catchment areas to support flow of rivers especially in the dry season, strong decline of wildlife in the rangelands which has impacted negatively the tourism sector, among others. Below are five on-going largescale initiatives that are striving towards restoring some of these degraded lands;
Regreening Africa: This is an ambitious five-year multi-country project that is being funded by the European Union to improve livelihoods, strengthen food security and build resilience while restoring 1 million hectares of degraded lands and ecosystems across 8 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa i.e. Kenya, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Somalia, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Ghana and Burkina Faso. The project began in 2017 and is scheduled to be completed next year (2022). In Kenya, the project is being led by World Vision and ICRAF, who engage a multitude of different other stakeholders, including the national and county governments, Community-Based Organizations and Faith-Based organizations to implement project activities, specifically in Migori, Homa-Bay, Nakuru, Elgeyo-Marakwet, Baringo, Isiolo, Laikipia, Marsabit and Samburu Counties. Out of the 150,000 hectares that the project had targeted to restore in Kenya, about 20, 000 hectares had been restored by the end of last year (2020).
AFR100: The African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative (AFR100) is a country-led effort that seeks to restore 100 million hectares of deforested and degraded landscapes, to enhance food security, increase climate change resilience and mitigation, and combat rural poverty across Africa by 2030. The initiative contributes to the achievement of the Bonn Challenge, the New York Declaration on Forests, the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 15 and the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) Land Degradation Neutrality targets among other targets. It works within the framework of the African Resilient Landscapes Initiative (ARLI), as expressed in the political declaration endorsed by the African Union in October 2015. Kenya committed to restoring 5.1 million hectares of its degraded lands under this initiative in 2016, with priority areas being afforestation and reforestation of natural forests, rehabilitation of degraded natural forests, promotion and expansion of agroforestry techniques, establishment of commercial tree plantations, establishment of tree cover as buffer along water bodies, establishment of tree cover along roads, highways and railway lines and restoration and management of rangelands . This effort is being financed by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and the German Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (BMUB), with support from World Resources Institute (WRI), Clinton Climate Initiative, Green-Belt Movement, UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and UN Environment Programme.
The Restoration Initiative (TRI): Launched in 2019, this global programme brings together the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), UN Environment Programme (UNEP), national and county governments and a host of other key partners to support ten different countries in Asia and in Africa, to restore degraded and deforested landscapes. In Kenya, TRI is being funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), where efforts are targeting policy development, strengthening of institutional capacity, community-led Forest and Landscape Restoration, the development of alternative community livelihoods through the improvement of bio-enterprises of timber and forest products and services in arid and semi-arid lands (ASALs), and the development of a five-year Forest and Landscape Restoration Implementation Action Plan (2021-2025), to accelerate interventions on the ground.
The Trillion Trees Initiative: This initiative was founded in 2018, as a joint venture between BirdLife International, Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), with the aim of planting one trillion trees by 2050, as a nature-based solution for combating climate change and to build healthy rural landscapes and economies. The initiative is a continuation of the 2016 Billion Tree Campaign, which was instigated by Wangari Maathai, the founder of the Green Belt Movement. One of the initiative's activities here in Kenya, is being implemented by Nature Kenya, a local Birdlife International partner that is working with Community Forest Associations around the Mt. Kenya region to grow 44,000 indigenous tree seedlings in a bid to restore the forests of Mt. Kenya.
Seedballs Kenya: This is an aerial tree seedling restoration enterprise that is focused on efficient and low-cost reintroduction of tree and grass species for rehabilitation of especially large degraded areas in Kenya. Seeds of native trees and grasses are coated in waste charcoal dust mixed with nutritious binders, which protects them from predators until rains arrive, and encourages germination. The seeds are spread (often referred to as seed bombing) by hand, slingshot, crop-spraying planes, helicopters or drones, for as little as US$0.05 per established seedling, this greatly reduces costs compared to planting seedlings.
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