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The drive to restore the Mau Forests Complex has received a landmark €2.3 million (Sh280 million) boost from the European Union. A new institution to oversee the conservation of all the key water towers in Kenya is in the pipeline, revealed the Prime Minister Rt Hon Raila Odinga. Already, a new fund called the Water Towers Conservation Fund has been gazetted. The Fund will support the restoration, conservation and sustainable management of the Mau Forests Complex and the other water towers in an equitable, efficient and transparent manner.
“We can no longer argue about the wisdom of investing in the conservation of our forests. We cannot carry on business as usual without paying a very heavy price,” Odinga said.
The three-year intervention is expected to deliver multiple benefits for Kenya and the region, ranging from the restoration of vital water catchments and the establishment of payments for environmental services; to improving the livelihoods of local communities and monitoring carbon storage in the Mau Forest.
The project, funded by the European Union and implemented by the Kenyan Government and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), aims to support the rehabilitation of the Mau forest ecosystem and to create a sustainable basis for its long-term conservation and management. Activities planned include survey and demarcation of boundaries of selected forest blocks for the issuance of title deeds, planting appropriate seedlings and building the capacity of Water Resources Users Associations to sustainably manage water catchments and riverine areas.
The Ministry of Lands has been allocated Sh1 billion for the resettlement of the Mau evictees as those kicked out of Mt Elgon and Embobut forests.
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The strategic importance of the Mau Forest lies in the ecosystem services it provides to Kenya and the region, including river flow regulation, flood mitigation, water storage, reduced soil erosion, biodiversity, carbon sequestration, carbon reservoir and microclimate regulation. It forms the largest closed-canopy forest ecosystem and covers over 400,000 hectares.
Over the last two decades, the Mau Complex has lost around 107,000 hectares - approximately 25 per cent - of its forest cover due to irregular and unplanned settlements, illegal resources extraction, in particular logging and charcoal burning, the change of land use from forest to unsustainable agriculture and change in ownership from public to private. Excised areas include critical upper water catchments for the rivers and the lakes fed by the Mau.
The Mau Complex is the largest of the five “water towers” of Kenya, forming the upper catchments of all main rivers in the Western part of Kenya. These rivers are the lifeline of major lakes and trans-boundary lakes such as Lake Victoria in the Nile River Basin; Lake Turkana in Kenya and Ethiopia, and lake Natron in Tanzania and Kenya.
UNEP Executive Director, Achim Steiner, said: “The Mau Forest Complex supports key economic sectors in the Rift Valley and Western Kenya - from energy and tourism to agriculture and industries. The project responds to the immediate needs of government, business and civil society to regulate the use of natural resources through a combination of economic incentives and voluntary measures. The generous support of the EU and international donors is allowing this transformative project to place Kenya on the path towards a green economy for sustainable development and poverty alleviation.” The Mau Complex is the single most important source of water for direct human consumption in the Rift Valley and Western Kenya. Continued destruction of the forests may inevitably lead to a water crisis of national and regional proportions.
Watershed rehabilitation constitutes an important component of the project. It aims to rehabilitate degraded water catchments and forest land in the Northern Mau by 2013.
According to a report, released by ICS in 2009, if encroachment and unsustainable exploitation of the forest ecosystem continues, it will only be a matter of time before the entire ecosystem is irreversibly damaged. EU Head of Operations in Kenya, Mr Bernard Rey, said his organisation had started deliberations with the Government of Kenya to develop a Watershed Protection and Climate Change Adaptation programme.
“This programme would deal with some of the root causes of the declining water flows from Kenya’s water sources, such as forest excisions, weak institutional capacities and adverse impacts of climate change,” he said. Rey said the EU was financing the project due to its innovative approaches that will contribute to international goals like Kenya Climate Change Response Strategy and the National REDD Strategy.
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“The Mau Complex is a living example of where economy and environment intersect and will benefit the rest of the world in achieving solutions that balance poverty reduction and environmental sustainability,” Mr Rey said.
An additional Euro €20 million were pledged by the EU for watershed protection and climate change adaptation in the Mau and other water towers in Kenya. The Government is expected to make a commitment to form strong institutional bodies to manage these resources. The pledged finances will help manage some of the root causes of the declining water flows from Kenya’s water sources, such as, forest excisions, weak institutional capacities and the adverse impacts of climate change.
Another major component of the Mau rehabilitation focuses on improving the sustainable livelihoods of communities in the Northern Mau, which will limit the dependency of these populations on destructive resource extraction from forests and catchments. The project will develop Payment for Environmental Services schemes as well as facilitate the establishment of small and micro enterprises and capacity building support to improve agricultural productivity.
Mr Odinga said: “This is a critical project for Kenya. It responds to national priorities, as outlined in Vision 2030 and will contribute to the implementation of the new Kenyan Forest Policy and the Forests Act by providing capacity building and institutional development.“
“On many levels, this is a transformational effort. In addition to conserving the environmental and spiritual value of the Mau, the project will develop innovative approaches that will enable community participation, benefit-sharing, and will support the establishment of forest management plans, marking and securing forest boundaries and piloting payment of ecosystem services through the provision of organisational structures for ecotourism development and the establishment of a carbon offset sub-project,” he added.
The final component of the project deals with building the organisational capacity of the Government to better manage rehabilitation and conservation efforts. Activities include the development of a Strategic Management Plan that will identify incentives-driven interventions for restoration of degraded areas.
The project also paves the way towards establishing Kenya’s pilot mechanism to “Reduce Emissions from Deforestation and Land Degradation” (REDD) by establishing an environmental monitoring system to quantify the carbon storage of the Mau forest, which may also be used to generate future additional resources from carbon credits.
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