With high degradation along Tana Delta in Tana River County, conservationists have intensified efforts of empowering communities living within the region.
The delta which is globally recognized as Ramsa Site has for years been facing many challenges due to the destruction of natural resources such as wetlands, forests due to pressure from animals and human beings.
Currently, the drought situation is worsening each day with increased loss of livestock, human-wildlife conflicts, and conflicts between pastoralists and farmers which has really affected the restoration efforts.
Anyone arriving in the Tana delta is currently welcomed by the carcasses of dead cows that died as a result of the effects of the drought.
This Week nature Kenya a conservation Non-Governmental Organisation(NGO) organized training for Water Users Resource Associations, Community forest associations to enlighten members of policies and laws that govern the forest sector.
Rudolf Makhamu the Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative Project coordinator Nature Kenya who organized the three-day training for the WRUAs and CFAs said the aim is to enhance the effectiveness of WRUAs in undertaking their roles and mandates in conservation and sustainable use of water resources.
“The objective of the training is to identify and elaborate on the government offices/institutions with a mandate to work with and support WRUAs in the water and associated sectors, Sensitize WRUAs on the services they are entitled to receive from mandated offices/institutions, and guide them on how to access these services,” he said.
Makhamu said they also wanted to build the skills and knowledge base of WRUAs on assorted topics to enhance their effectiveness in undertaking their mandates in management and restoration.
Nature Kenya has been working i9n the Tanadelta for over 12 years with a view to helping the community in conservation efforts.
He said the restoration project will help manage 48,000 hectares of forest within the delta through the forest act approach.
“So the project sets to engage communities to form community forest associations and adopt this approach of participatory forest management,” he said.
He said from the time the project started they created five CFAs from the scratch, did capacity building, trained the community groups, and took them to exchange visits to mt Kenya to see how other groups how they do conservation.
In their training model, he said they normally engage partners including Kenya Forest Research Institute, Kenya Forest Service, and NEMA to help build capacity on the CFAs on restoration, management planning setting up tree nurseries, leadership conflicts management among others.
Makhamu said participatory management plans help the communities in managing the forests.
So far he said they have done for management plans and are in the process of completing one for Kipini, Ozi, Kilelengwani, and Chara forests.
He said their aim is for them to understand the legal frameworks in terms of playing their mandates and roles.
“We have invited different institutions who are helping to train them to help them understand the legal framework, we have a person from WRMA, KFS, and KEFRI, to help them know how to engage government agencies and other players to engage them positively.
George Odera who is in charge of Nature Kenya in Tanadelta said the restoration project is funded by GEF and UN through the government of Kenya aimed at restoring some of the degraded landscapes within the tana delta including forest areas, Mangroves, river forests, grasslands, and farmlands.
He said they work with the county government to establish policy and that they have developed a forest landscape restoration action plan and forest policies for Lamu and Tanariver counties
“We have also developed the climate change policies for the two counties and we are now working on the climate change regulation for Tanariver so we are working with the counties to make sure there are policies in place,” he said.
Odera said their target is the entire Tanadelta which has over 130,000 people and is involving everyone who cares about the environment.
Currently, he said they have been collecting indigenous trees and planting them in the world expecting rains would come to germinate.
However, he said they have challenges because of the drought as there is no pasture and animals are dying in hundreds which has led to seedlings that germinated to be consumed by the animals.
Some pastoralists he said have been forced to cut down tall trees to feed goats that have no pasture leading to loss of trees.
Tanariver CEC Member for Agriculture Mwanajuma Hirbae said a lot has been happening particularly now that there are challenges of climate change globally and their county was among the highly affected.
Hirbae said they have come up with a new system of farming called Hydroponic farming that uses little soil and water and produces crops that have no chemicals as opposed to those planted on normal land.
“As a government, we welcome all stakeholders who will come to help in coming up with sustainable developments that will not affect the environment,” she said.
The CEC member said nature Kenya is among those stakeholders who have been promoting climate-smart farming with a view to conserve the environment by producing grass.
Local community members of WRUAs interviewed said the drought has really affected their efforts in conservation and thousands of plants they planted have dried up with only those along the river that survived.
Paster Peter Ndege the Secretary Salama WRUA said there are many challenges as pastoralists do not have pastures and have now begun cutting down trees to feed their animals.
“Our river dried for the last 24 years, it gets water during floods only and dries up later, the trees that were along the area are being destroyed we are trying to sensitize them to ensure they understand the importance of conservation,’ he said.
Ndege said they do not have the capacity to reach out to all the community members to sensitize them on the importance of conserving the trees and urged organizations to come in and support them.
Ricky Mwamure the chairman of Ozi KIlelengwani WRUA said there are thousands of animals from other parts of Tanariver and other counties that have brought pressure that affects farmers.
Currently, pastoralists are grazing their animals on farms which often leads to conflicts that at times become deadly.
He said they have a project of planting seedlings and have over 2500 seeds but they plan to increase more seedlings.
Swaleh Abdi the chairman of Bilisa WRUA said the drought has really hampered the efforts of conservation and led to many conflicts.
Abdi said they planted so many seedlings far from the river which died due to lack of rainfall and now there are challenges of livestock dying while people lost their livelihoods.
“The restoration program is now challenging because of the drought we are forced to concentrate more on how our animals will survive to remain alive,” he said.
Abdi said he had 39 cows but is now left with only eight as the others died as a result of the drought disaster.
He said they have a farm as WRUA but its invaded by elephants saily which is creating many losses.
Mary Haibo from Lake Shakababo WRUA said seedlings did not germinate because of drought and recruiting new members is a challenge because people claim they have no money to contribute Sh. 200 per month for the association.
So far she said they have over 1000 seedlings that are ready for planting and others did not germinate.
