Tue, Nov 29, 2011
Launch of €2.3 m landmark Project to Promote
Conservation, Economic Growth & Sustainable
Livelihoods in
Kenya & the Region
Email4 0 0 1
Nairobi, 29 November
2011 - A new three-year intervention to
rehabilitate the Northern Mau Forest at
the cost of Euro €2.3 million is set to
deliver multiple benefits for Kenya and
the region. These range 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.
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% - 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.
UN Under-Secretary General
and 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
that extend far beyond the Kenyan borders.
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. Activities under this
component include: the survey and demarcation
of the boundaries of selected forest blocks
for the issuance of title deeds, planting
appropriate seedlings on selected forest
land and building the capacity of Water
Resources Users Associations to sustainably
manage water catchments and riverine areas.
According to a report,
released by the Kenyan Government's Interim
Coordinating Secretariat for the Mau Forest
Complex 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
with significant socio-economic consequences.
EU Head of Operations
in Kenya, Mr Bernard Rey, said, "The
EU has 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."
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 of Kenya 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.
The Rt. Hon. Raila Odinga,
Prime Minister of Kenya, 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 organizational
structures for ecotourism development and
the establishment of a carbon offset sub-project.
On behalf of the Government of Kenya, I
would like to thank the European Union for
generously funding this project. And I would
like to thank UNEP for backing this effort
and providing technical and programmatic
support," he added.
The final component
of the project deals with building the organizational
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.
Notes to Editors
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
in Kenya and transboundary lakes such as
Lake Victoria in the Nile River Basin; Lake
Turkana in Kenya and Ethiopia, and lake
Natron in Tanzania and Kenya.
Perennial rivers in
the Mau are becoming seasonal, storm flows
and downstream flooding are increasing and
wells and springs are drying up. The water
stress in the Mau is largely attributed
to land degradation and deforestation.
The Ogiek are a forest-dependant
indigenous community whose main livelihoods
are dependent on the utilization of forest
resources. The Mau Forest Secretariat embarked
on a process of establishing an Ogiek Council
of Elders to maintain consultations with
the Ogiek regarding conservation and rehabilitation
measures.
Deforestation and forest
degradation contribute approximately 15-17
per cent of all greenhouse gases.
At its 16th meeting,
in Cancun, the Conference of the Parties
(COP) of the UN Framework Convention on
Climate Change (UNFCCC) adopted REDD+ as
a means to reduce emissions.
