|
ENVIRONMENT-KENYA:
Sustainability Collides With
Poverty
Joyce Mulama
MT KENYA, Nov 4 (IPS) - Visitors to Mbeere district in
Kenya’s Central Province can hardly miss them: bags of charcoal
laid on either side of the road. Those who sell the bags are far
less visible, however. They hide in the surrounding dense
vegetation, only appearing to make hurried sales.
The reason for this secrecy? Fears of imminent arrest by officials
who are trying to curb the illegal logging in Mount Kenya forest
which supplies the wood used to make charcoal.
There are fears that tree felling may decimate the 2,700 square
kilometre forest, which serves as a catchment area for no less
than 60 rivers. Dwindling tree cover is blamed for massive erosion
in the area, said to lose four million tonnes of soil annually to
the Indian Ocean.
As illegal logging is motivated largely by poverty, putting
environmental concerns first in this region is no easy task.
In an effort to address poverty and provide an alternative to
logging, the Rome-based International Fund for Agricultural
Development has teamed up with local communities in Mt Kenya east
to support small projects aimed at generating income.
These include the Kamurugu Agricultural Development Initiative,
which focuses on mango and vegetable cultivation – and rearing
chickens and goats for sale. According to Marketing Manager Peter
Mbogo, the project produces about 20,000 kilogrammes of mangoes
annually, which fetch up to about 50 cents per kilogramme.
"We teach farmers that, using grafting and correct manure
application, a tiny piece of land can produce something
substantial that can help earn income – instead of logging,
which ends up depleting the forest and the environment at large,"
Mbogo told IPS.
Another initiative, the Mt Kenya East Pilot Project for Natural
Resources Management, is a seven-year scheme that seeks to improve
the lives of 580,000 people in five districts through more
effective use of natural resources and improved agricultural
practices.
Government, through its National Environment Management Authority,
has also embarked on a campaign to inform communities about the
importance of reforestation. This is done through "barazas"
(community meetings), and distributing material about
reforestation in simple brochures printed in local languages.
Initiatives that promote agriculture have encountered an obstacle,
in the form of forest elephants that destroy crops.
"You see, banana, sugarcane, maize and others are not in
existence on our farms because they have been destroyed by
elephants. Our farms have been invaded 42 times since 1984,"
says Elisha Njeru, a farmer and community leader.
According to Wilson Ndegwa of the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS),
there were four deaths and several injuries from elephant attacks
in the region last year.
However, efforts continue to prevent communities from turning back
to illegal logging, by providing them with alternative sources of
income.
"The fight against desertification is fundamentally a fight
against poverty," Hama Arba Diallo, executive secretary of
the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, said at a
conference held in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, recently.
The Oct. 17-28 meeting sought to assess the progress made in
combating desertification and reducing poverty by the 191 member
countries which signed up to the convention in 1994.
During the conference, African states, development agencies,
donors and other groups launched an initiative called
‘TerrAfrica’ to enhance efforts at preventing land degradation
and to promote sustainable land use on the continent. The hope is
that about four billion dollars will be sourced for the plan,
reportedly the largest of its kind, which is to be managed by the
World Bank.
According to the United Nations, about two thirds of Africa’s
population is affected by land degradation, while the same
proportion of cropland could become unproductive as a result of
degradation within the next two decades.
While just 17 percent of the world’s forests are found in
Africa, more than half of all deforestation takes place on the
continent.
TerrAfrica will help those involved in the fight against land
degradation to share knowledge, and to ensure that policy makers
at all levels give consideration to sustainable land management.
"TerrAfrica is unique in that it will look at the root causes
of land degradation, as well as the barriers and disconnects
between demand for investments in support of SLM (sustainable land
management) and the major delivery and financing mechanisms both
at the domestic and international levels," says Warren Evans,
the World Bank’s director of environment. (END/2005)
|
