- Kenya’s coastal forests are part of the Eastern Africa Coastal Forests ecoregion, with high levels of biodiversity and several species of plants and animals found nowhere else in the world.
- An influx of migrants into the region has meant more human pressure on forests, with the region losing upwards of 10 percent of its tree cover in 15 years.
- Major infrastructure and industry developments are also planned for the area, leaving conservationists worried about their environmental impacts.
- A program by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development is aiming to help communities and governments better manage their forests – and keep the wildlife that lives within them from going extinct.
WITU, Kenya – Dense green foliage flanks the dusty, heavily potholed road in Witu Forest, a protected area on the Kenyan coast about 75 kilometers from the city of Lamu. Comprising native shrubs, grasses, and trees, the area has so far escaped the massive deforestation that has befallen much of northern Kenya’s coastal forests lining the country’s portion of the Horn of Africa. Nearby, patches of cleared and burned land await conversion to agricultural land and new settlements – a common theme in this part of East Africa. This area is part of a coastal forest belt near the Kenya-Somalia border in the Eastern Africa Coastal Forests ecoregion that stretches from southern Somalia through Kenya and Tanzania and most of Mozambique’s coast, ending at the Limpopo River. According to the Kenya Forest Service (KFS), the Kenyan portion covers an area of over 120,000 hectares, with mangroves comprising around 20,000 hectares.
Considered one of Conservation International’s 35 “biodiversity hotspots,” the region is home to a wide variety of wildlife – many endemic, meaning they’re found nowhere else in the world. Among them is the Hirola antelope (Beatragus hunter), which is listed as Critically Endangered by the IUCN, and the Endangered Tana River mangabey (ercocebus galeritus), a monkey that is found only along a short stretch of its namesake river. Witu Forest is home to a cactus-like plant called Euphorbia tanaensis, of which only a handful of individuals are known to exist. Other more widespread species that depend on these forests include Aders’ duiker (Cephalophus adersi) and the hawksbill turtle (Eretmochelys imbricate), both listed as Critically Endangered, as well as African elephants, lions, buffalo, giraffes, African wild dogs, hippopotamuses, and Nile crocodiles.
But human activity has whittled away the region’s forests, leaving only fragmented patches. Of that which remains, the forest monitoring platform Global Forest Watch shows Kenya’s portion of the Eastern Africa Coastal Forests biodiversity hotspot lost more than 7 percent of its dense tree cover between 2001 and 2014. In total, Kenya’s coastal region lost nearly 10 percent of its tree cover over that time.
Settlement and development
Francis Man’gee, Kenya Forest Service (KFS) senior forester says around half of Lamu County’s forest cover is contained within community ranches and attributes much of the region’s deforestation to encroachments within them. He anticipates a bleak future for the area’s remaining indigenous communities due to future infrastructure expansion and a lack of conservation prioritization.
“Tree cover has been affected within the protected areas, but it’s very high within the community ranches currently not under government protected areas” Man’gee said. “About 30-40 percent of the forests within these ranches have been lost due to encroachment by land-grabbers, lack of reforestation, Illegal settlements, illegal logging, reduced rainfall and overgrazing affecting natural regeneration.”
One of these community ranches – Amu Ranch – has seen encroachment displace forests on 8,000 hectares of its 26,000-hectare total area, according to Mohammed Badi, a conservationist who works at the ranch.
“Settlement schemes have replaced the dense tropical forests within the entire Kenyan belt,” Badi told Mongabay. “Lamu County alone has over five settlements wiping out once-dense Hindi tropical forest, Mpeketoni and Witu forests.”
Badi attributes the illegal settlements to overpopulation of settlers in Lamu County from government resettlement schemes in the 1970s, as well as new migrants attracted by development prospects. A major wave of migrants is coming north to the county from other parts of Kenya in search of arable land.
“They now require extra land for subsistence farming,” Badi said.
Planned development of a new oil pipeline and port are also drawing settlers from around the region. The Kenyan Government plans to construct a new transport corridor with a railway, shipping port, airport, road, and oil pipeline from Lamu, connecting Kenya with Ethiopia and South Sudan. Kenya is spearheading the development of this project – called the Lamu Port-South-Sudan-Ethiopia Transport (LAPSSET) corridor – to strengthen the country’s position as a gateway and transport hub for the region.
According to Badi, migrants and locals are buying land to invest in or sell at higher prices once the LAPSSET project is operational.
“With the new pipeline and port being built, everyone is hurrying to acquire a piece of land due to the promises of development,” Badi said.
An Environmental Impact Assessment [EIA] for the LAPSSET’s port project found a broad range of damaging consequences through dredging, landfills, discharge from ships and waterfront industries, cargo operations and other port-related activities.
“The demarcation of the acreage of land to be cleared is currently being undertaken, but over 8,000 hectares of mangroves and other forests will be cleared for the port and its infrastructure,” Man’gee told Mongabay.
In addition to LAPSSET, the county government has licensed a 1,050-megawatt coal-fired power plant to be built and operated on 350 hectares of land about 20 kilometers from the city of Lamu, and about 800 hectares are slated for limestone mining near Witu Forest. Man’gee told Mongabay a 40-megawatt solar power facility is being developed near the planned limestone quarry.
“In total, LAPSSET and the coal power plant will reduce the current 33 percent of tree cover in Lamu to less than 10 percent,” Man’gee said.
The project’s Environmental and Social Impact Assessment report estimates that construction of the coal power plant will release almost 110,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide, 764 metric tons of nitrogen oxide, 78 metric tons of sulfur dioxide, and 716 metric tons of particulate matter. When fully operational, the plant is also expected to release mercury, lead, arsenic, nickel and cadmium.
David Obura, coordinator for the East Africa division of the NGO Coastal Oceans Research and Development in the Indian Ocean (CORDIO), is concerned about the release of these contaminants.
“Chemical pollution from residues [produced by] burning coal will impact the quality of rainwater, groundwater, and the sea, profoundly affecting the sea beds, mangroves, and the plankton community,” Obura said.
Allegations of corruption
Badi claims that corruption by forest managers and government officials has exacerbated illegal logging in Kenya. Ali Shebwana, chairperson of the County Wildlife Conservation and Compensation Committee (CWCCC) of Lamu County concurs with Badi and further alleges that the Kenya Forest Service (KFS) not only permits logging within and outside the protected area, but actively participates in illegal logging activities.
“[The Kenya Forest Service conducts] business with the forests selling timber and charcoal within the county and neighboring counties of Mombasa and Malindi. Corruption within the system hampers prosecution,” Shebwana told Mongabay.
Man’gee, however, refuted claims that KFS provides permits for logging in the region’s forests, saying “we only grant title deed holders to log within their farms after being….assessed by KFS and the Ministry of Agriculture. The unplanned illegal land-grabbing later legalized as settlements by government is what is killing these forests.”
Man’gee admitted illegal timber logging is occurring in Lamu County and said KFS is inadequately funded to conduct effective monitoring, but was quick to add that KFS is not to blame for the logging itself. Instead, he faulted local government.
“Illegal logging happens at the ranches,” Man’gee told Mongabay. “The county government and the provincial administration are to be blamed for legalizing the illegal settlements through appointing headmen, and building schools and hospitals. This encourages more illegal settlements to sprout out.”
Man’gee said within the 2015-2016 fiscal year Witu Forest was allocated $690 per quarter for conservation from the national government, which was not enough to patrol the forest.
Conservation is under the jurisdiction of the national government, according to Omar Lali, chair of the Budget and Appropriations Committee of Lamu County. He said the county only allocates funds for beach cleaning and planting nurseries, not monitoring and enforcement in protected areas.
The illegal land-grabbing referred to by Man’gee is locally referred to as “witemere,” which translates to “cut yourself a piece” and is occurring outside protected forest areas of Lamu County. Man’gee blames the county government for legalizing the settlements by appointing headmen and providing them with infrastructure like schools and hospitals.
Bernard Kitheka, a 65-year-old father of 12, moved to Tangeni village in the Witu area in 2011. He and a group of farmers slash-and-burned their respective two-acre plots in Witu Forest where they now live and practice subsistence farming. The local government recognizes the group and has been in talks with them about the issuance of title deeds to their land.
Kitheka asserts that he did not acquire the property through land-grabbing. He said that since the land has no title deeds, they paid the local communities the cost of development they had already undertaken on the land. While illegal in greater Kenya, this system is common in Lamu County, where it is locally referred to as “kurudisha gharama” – a Swahili term for “return the cost” – in which an agreement is signed between the two parties in the presence of a local administrator. For his two hectares Kitheka paid about $50.
“The entire area was a forest that used to flood when it rained which we cleared for farming, but there were local communities who used to graze around and live near the town. They are the ones who sold us the land, we never grabbed it,” Kitheka said.
Badi said that clearance of forest for agriculture and settlements have displaced indigenous communities dependent on the forest for food within the coastal forest belt. Such appears to be the case with Mohammed Omar, a 56-year-old member of the Sanye community, who lives in Daya village and depends on the surrounding forests for food like fish, crabs, prawns, fruit and honey. Now locked between a ranch and a farming community, Omar says there is no forest area left from which he and other Sanye members can gather resources.
“The forest is gone; the remaining one is a restricted ranch that we have no access to! The mangroves have been cut. The crabs and prawns have tremendously reduced. We would previously harvest about 10 kilograms per catch but now you would be lucky to get 2 kilograms,” Omar told Mongabay.
Working together
The world’s biodiversity levels are dropping by the year as habitat loss, climate change and other human pressures drive species to extinction. The 2011-2020 Aichi Biodiversity Targets adopted at the 10th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP10) of the Convention on Biological Diversity aim to address the underlying causes of global biodiversity loss to reduce pressure on biodiversity and promote sustainability.
In Kenya and Somalia, a joint Biodiversity Management Programme (BMP) by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) is working with communities and governments in the two countries to reduce deforestation and establish biodiversity databases. The $15.6 million initiative is funded by the European Union with the intent to make biodiversity data held by institutions within these countries accessible to researchers and decision-makers.
“The aim is to support the IGAD Members States to review, strengthen their sector policies and frameworks at the national and regional levels for sustainable ecosystem management and biodiversity conservation,” said Maimbo Malesu, program coordinator for the World Agro Forestry Centre who focuses on the Kenyan-Somalia border. “[The] BMP aims to help put in place an information system to assist countries to report on the Aichi Targets to the Convention on Biological Diversity.”
Some of the BMP’s projects include helping communities establish honey value chains and improving farmland forest cover. To ensure water availability in an area where annual rainfall has been decreasing over the last three seasons, they are encouraging communities to invest in rainwater harvesting technologies for irrigation, household functions and beekeeping.
The program is also aiming to restore degraded portions of Witu Forest and mangroves. According to Malesu, 290 hectares of Witu Forest and 400 hectares of mangrove area are slated for restoration over a four-year period.
George Wara, the Lamu Ecosystem Conservator with the KFS, says that through the BMP, his institution has received $30,000, and will use the funds to plant about 27,000 indigenous tree seedlings within Witu Forest, with 20,000 more distributed to farmers within Witu. In total, KFS aims to plant 80,000 seedlings within protected areas by 2017.
Bernard Kitheka and a group of 30 members trained in honey value chain management and rainwater harvesting have teamed up as community foresters to restore tree cover within farmland.
“We are encouraging members to set aside a portion of land near the beehives for tree planting,” Kitheka told Mongabay. “We aim to set aside a bush for the bees to access food and also have individual forests for wood and building materials.”
Unfortunately, Kitheka and the group lost over half of the 3,000 seedlings they had planted this year due to poor rainfall “Only 20 out of 100 seedlings I had in my farm survived,” Kitheka said.
With help from the BMP, Kitheka and the group are working to hedge against future drought scenarios by digging a water pan – a hand-dug shallow well – to collect rainwater and aid in irrigation of his crops and tree seedlings.
While parts of Witu Forest have recorded success, Somalia’s Laga Badana Bushland area is yet to register a conservation milestone.
“The vision was to have a joint cross-border biodiversity conservation area that spreads across Kenya into Somalia, but in practice that has been constrained by lack of working institutions in Somalia and frequent changes in government structures in Juba Land,” Malesu told Mongabay.
Malesu blames this delayed implementation on a lack of cooperation between the federal government of Somalia and Juba Land local authorities, as well as the illegal occupation of Laga Badana by Al Shabaab.
However, Malesu notes that the BMP has managed to map and establish biodiversity hotspots within Somalia. ICRAF researchers are developing a conservation curriculum for Somali institutions via active research and academic exchange.
With the first phase of the initiative coming to an end in November 2017, Malesu is not very optimistic about achieving the cross-border vision since “the IGAD point of contact in Somalia is the federal government of Somalia, which is not in charge of Juba Land. The success only depends on cooperation between the two who currently do not see eye to eye.”
However, he hopes the implementation of the Lamu County Spatial Plan, which is currently being drafted, will guard Kenyan coastal biodiversity from further loss as the county opens up to development.
“The County Spatial Plan will guide future county planning and designate land for development, conservation, agriculture, settlements, and livestock-keeping,” Malesu said.
Citations:
- Hansen, M. C., P. V. Potapov, R. Moore, M. Hancher, S. A. Turubanova, A. Tyukavina, D. Thau, S. V. Stehman, S. J. Goetz, T. R. Loveland, A. Kommareddy, A. Egorov, L. Chini, C. O. Justice, and J. R. G. Townshend. 2013. “High-Resolution Global Maps of 21st-Century Forest Cover Change.” Science 342 (15 November): 850–53. Data available on-line from:http://earthenginepartners.appspot.com/science-2013-global-forest. Accessed through Global Forest Watch on October 20 and November 2. www.globalforestwatch.org
- Banner image: Slash-and-burn clearing near Tangeni Village. Photo by Sophie Mbugua
Credits
