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Grim future as forests are stripped
Story by TONY KAGO
DAILY NATION
Publication Date: 10/05/2004
Experts have warned that Kenya's economy faces a grim future, unless urgent measures are taken to halt the destruction of the 360,000-hectare Mau Forests Complex.
Already, some of the rivers running from the complex have either dried up or become seasonal due to the destruction of tree cover and settlement.
But the greatest danger is to Kenya's Sh24 billion-a-year tourism sector, a new report published in the /Daily Nation/'s sister weekly newspaper, /The EastAfrican/, reveals.
Farming in the upper reaches of the Mara River, the report says, is threatening the survival of millions of wildebeests and zebras.
The Mara River is the lifeblood of the Mara-Serengeti ecosystem and is closely linked to the spectacular migration of millions of zebras and wildebeests that attract thousands of local and international tourists, every year.
According to the report, the survival of Lake Natron, which is the main breeding ground for the millions of flamingoes that populate many of the Rift Valley lakes, is uncertain, with the water volume in the Ewaso Nyiro River that feeds the lake dropping significantly.
Also threatened are the rivers that flow into Lake Victoria – Yala, Nzoia and Sondu. The Sondu is the source of the water expected to drive the engines that will generate electricity in the ongoing multi-billion Sondu Miriu hydro-electric power project.
According to the report, Naishi River, which drains into Lake Nakuru, has "ceased to exist," while the formerly permanent River Njoro "is now seasonal due to the destruction of the forests in the Mau Escarpment".
Some 7,084 hectares of forest cover were cleared from the Mau Complex between 2000 and last year, according to the Kenya Forestry Working Group.
A fact-finding mission organised by the group and key officials of the Forestry Department to the Mau forests, in April, produced the report.
"This figure is just the tip of the iceberg, as it does not represent the deforestation that took place prior to 2000, and since last year," said Michael Gachanja, the group's coordinator.
Experts have estimated that between 1967 and 1989, the eastern sector of the complex had lost about 28 per cent of its tree cover, largely through the establishment of the World Bank-supported forest plantations in the 1970s.
"The destruction is actively undermining not only the livelihoods of the communities living downstream, but also the Government's efforts at making such investments as the Sondu-Miriu hydro-electric power project," said Dr Hezron Mogaka of the Biodiversity Conservation Programme (BCP).
Dr Mogaka says that over the past 20 years, the complex might have lost up to 60 per cent of its tree cover.
"At Independence (in 1963), the Mau (Complex) was one forest, but what we have now are patches of forest."
Funded by the European Union, the BCP is engaged in a two-year Sh13.9 million ($173,750) Mau Forest Complex Conservation Project.
The Mau is a complex of 22 forests spanning five districts – Narok, Nakuru, Nandi, Bomet and Kericho – that represent over 25 per cent of Kenya's forests.
They are said to be larger than the Aberdares and Mt Kenya forests, to which public attention has been glued in the recent past.
The complex is one of Kenya's five "water towers", as it forms catchments for all the major rivers flowing into Lake Victoria, that is, Sondu, Yala and Nzoia, as well as Ewaso Nyiro, Kerio and Mara, which pastoralists rely on.
The joint mission visited three forests of Maasai Mau, Ol Posimoru and Trasmara to complement information collected from nine other forests two years ago. In all the visited forests, the destruction involved charcoal burning targeting high-value indigenous trees.
So grim is the situation that the entire 901-hectare Molo Forest has been cleared. "Based on satellite images and aerial surveys, it appears that all plantations have been harvested and not replanted with tree seedlings. The indigenous forest has been cleared," says the mission's report.
Replacing the forests are plantations of maize, beans, potatoes, peas and other staples, it added.
The forest forms the upper catchment of the Molo River, which drains into Lake Baringo.
The Elburgon forest, too, has been cleared and what remains of Likia Forest, in Njoro, Nakuru, is a thin strip of indigenous trees. The forest has been transformed into a school, with the forest guards' post serving as the District Officer's office.
As for Sururu Forest, a farming community of 300 families had occupied it before the Government evicted them recently. It is now the subject of a case in the High Court.
The Maasai Mau, South West Mau and Eastern Mau forests have lost between a third and two-thirds of their tree cover, leaving large "bald" patches that are incapable of holding water during the rains.
Recently, the destruction of the Maasai Mau was in the limelight after local politicians, led by Mr William ole Ntimama, a minister in the Office of the President, decried the grabbing of a section of the forest by unnamed but well-to-do local politicians.
Other forests in the complex, including Molo South, West Molo, Southern Mau, Eburu, Eastern Mau, Mau Narok, Kilombe Hill, and Mount Londiani are under varying degrees of pressure from human
activities.
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