Kenya is a large country in East Africa, situated between Lake Victoria to the West and the Indian Ocean to the East. Its capital, Nairobi, is a large regional commercial hub, and its economy is heavily reliant on two particular sectors as sources of external revenue: agriculture and tourism.
Food security and poverty have been key development challenges in Kenya, with some sources finding that around 36% of the Kenyan population live below the poverty line. In the Mau Region, challenges for local people include limited access to fresh water, poor road infrastructure, and insufficient education facilities. The Mau forest itself contains many rivers which feed into Lake Victoria to the West, impacting millions of people’s lives.
Deforestation which has taken place in this region particularly since the 1970s – to support agriculture, charcoal production and livestock – has caused widespread degradation of the land, and when combined with recent droughts in the region has caused severe hydrological damage throughout local watersheds.
Temperate Forest Restoration
The world’s 1.9 billion acres of temperate forests are a net-carbon sink. According to the World Resources Institute, more than 1.4 billion additional acres are candidates for restoration—either large-scale, closed forest or mixed mosaics of forests, more sparsely growing trees, and land uses such as agriculture. With restoration comes additional carbon sequestration. While temperate forests are not threatened by the same large-scale deforestation that afflicts the tropics, they continue to be fragmented by development. They also are experiencing hotter and more frequent droughts, longer heat waves, and more severe wildfires, as well as worsening insect and pathogen outbreaks. These disturbances can push temperate forests beyond their capacity for resilience.
Planting Partner
This projects in Kenya is run by Eden Reforestation Projects whose mission is to provide fair-wage employment to impoverished villagers as agents of global forest restoration.
Eden hire local people to grow, plant, and guard to maturity the trees planted through funding from our community – on a massive scale. As well as restoring forest ecosystems, Eden’s “Employ to Plant” methodology results in multiple positive socioeconomic and environment impacts.
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