Bees, pots, goats and fruit give forest – and its people – new life

NAROK, Kenya – When raising his children on the edge of the Maasai Mau forest in the highlights west of the Rift Valley, Wilson Memusi and his family never lacked food. There was plenty of honey, small mammals, birds and edible roots.

Now, however, 25 years later, overgrazing, logging and clearing of the forest for farming and charcoal has eliminated some of the forest and left much of the rest of it damaged. And as the forest declines, rainfall is becoming more erratic, causing water supplies to dry up.

“Everything nowadays has changed and what we have is lots of problems – and people are very poor,” Memusi, 69.

But efforts to restore the forest and the lives of people living near it are underway. They include working with people to alter their ways of earning money, help them practice more sustainable use of the forest and cope with emerging challenges from climate change.

The project – the Sogoo Community Forest and Nature Association (SOCOFONA) – was launched by the Kenya Forests Working Group (KFWG) and focuses on climate change adaptation and building resilience to the effects of climate change, reduced rainfall and more frequent droughts.

Its goals include restoring sections of the forest – though land titles issued on some parcels mean there is no real hope the forest can be entirely restored, experts say – and helping people find new sustainable ways to earn a living from activities such as bee keeping, fish farming and making clay pots.

SOURCE OF WATER

The 46,000-hectare (113,000-acre) Maasai Mau forest is part of the larger Mau forest reserve. It is East Africa’s largest water source – home to the origins of 12 rivers, including the Mara River, which sustains millions of wildlife species in the world famous Mara-Serengeti ecosystem which includes Kenya and Tanzania, according to the WWF (World Wildlife Fund).

Since 1985, about 35 percent of the Maasai Mau forest has been lost to logging and conversion to farmland, human settlements and tea estates, according to Kenya Forestry Sevices (KFS).

“Things started changing when people started farming in the forest, felling trees. … Animals fled and now there’s no more honey, springs no longer appear even when rains are heavy, and land is no longer productive” said Memusi, who was among the first people to support and join the SOCOFONA forest conservation and resilience project.

That is now beginning to change as a result of the project, which is trying to teach a range of new money-making activities to people living near the forest.

“We have successfully taught women and youth new skills including modern beekeeping, ceramic making, and fish farming,” said John Bambo, coordinator of the Kenya Forests Working Group.

BEES, POTS AND GOATS

For instance, the project has installed 425 beehives that are specially designed to make maintenance and harvesting honey easy, said Joseph Waitage, a farmer who chairs SOCOFONA. The hives hang from wires on tree branches to protect them from pests and predators such as honey badgers.

Persuading women to own and operate hives was a challenge, Bambo said, because women traditionally have not kept bees. But about 20 now have hives, he said.

Making pottery – another money-making activity – also was completely new for women, Bambo said. But soils in the area are ideal for making clay and women are now producing cooking and flower pots, and vases and urns for keeping water cold, he said.

Women also are raising imported Toggenburg goats, which produce up to twice as much milk as traditional breeds, as well as more meat when they are slaughtered, Bambo said.

The animal-raising aspects of the project have run into some problems. Birds have preyed on the project’s fish farms and the imported goats have yet to develop immunity to local diseases and fall ill more often than traditional breeds, Bambo said. But with expert advice, those problems are being overcome, he said.

Evelyne Korir is one woman who has benefited from the shared proceeds of group honey sales. Her 20-woman group harvested 100 kilos of honey from five forest hives last year.

This earned her group about $500 (or $25 each) which they used to buy Kisasa energy-saving cookstoves, which youths in the project are being trained to make and sell.

Normally, a woman must sell one and half bags of maize to earn $25, which by rural Kenyan standards is enough to pay for one school term of kindergarten, Korir said.

“The money was not much, this being our first harvest, but since the local market for honey is good we are very encouraged”, said the mother of four.

Moses Lemisho, a local teenager, said that selling farm-raised fish has not been easy, as local people are not used to eating fish. But he and other youths have managed to sell their catch to lodges and hotels in the Maasai Mara reserve that serve mostly international tourists.

As part of the project, people living in the forest have also planted over 100,000 trees, including 36,000 seedlings of fruit trees, including citrus and high-yielding, disease-free bananas. The plantings are meant to provide an income to people to discourage them from cutting trees or other activities that may harm the fragile Mau ecosystem.

This month many growers are harvesting their first crop of particularly high-value Haas avocados. The avocados and other fruit are eaten locally and also sold to exporters to supply markets in Europe, Waitage said.

The project, which includes lessons at a local resource centre on changes to rains and seasons, has helped Memusi’s community, the Ogiek forest people, along with two other ethnic groups, the Maasai and Kalenjin, better understand the effects of climate change, Waitage said.

Among the climate-related problems people face are declining rainfall and shifting seasons, which have led to unreliable productivity from farmland and plantings, he said.

PROTECTION OF SPRINGS

To protect their remaining water resources, project participants are fencing local springs and planting trees around them to help control erosion, while also providing easy-to-use water collection points beside the springs to keep people from walking directly into them.

The protection of the area’s remaining water sources is crucial, Bambo said.

“The whole of the Maasai Mau area used to having dependable and clean water with 45 natural springs replenished by the forest, but with increased illegal activities in the forest, these springs have been drying up or have been degraded, forcing residents to turn to dirty water from local streams,” Waitage said.

Memusi hopes the changes will benefit generations to come.

“It might take a long time before the forest reclaims its past glory but it is encouraging to note that something is being done so that our grandchildren may one day live to witness the abundance the forest once provided,” he said.