Together with our tree planting partner Eden Reforestation Projects (Eden), we have officially started our first tree planting projects. Eden is a non-profit organization based in California, USA, that works in developing countries to fight extreme poverty and restore healthy forests. The organization is known for their large-scale tree planting and their focus on creating jobs for local people. We are proud to announce that Regreener is now planting trees in Kenya!
Eden Reforestation Projects is working with local communities and villagers to restore, replant and protect these precious forest areas.
Kenya
Kenya is an incredibly beautiful place from the creativity of the people to its diversity of its landscapes and wildlife. From the highlands to the coast, Kenya has an incredible diversity of forest types that have long-supported communities and wildlife. The cultural and ecological heritage of Kenya’s forests is vibrant and unique, but the management of them in recent decades has been unsustainable. Eden Reforestation Projects started working with the local community to replant and protect Kenya’s forest systems in 2019.
Planting sites
Trees are planted in the 5,000-hectare protected Kijabe Forest. The Kijabe Forest sits in a complex, dynamic landscape. About 1.5 hours from Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, the forest grows on the steep edges of the Great Rift Valley. Once home to herds of buffalo, leopards, and elephants, this forest is an essential home and corridor for wildlife. Animals use this area to move between the Rift Valley’s dry floor and the Kenyan highlands’ protected, lush forests. As one of Kenya’s five nationally-significant water towers, the forest channels water to the surrounding communities and country. Over the past 15 years, the forest has been cleared for charcoal and timber, reducing the number of permanent rivers flowing from eight to one. Additionally, rains have become unreliable, catastrophic landslides have taken lives and damaged important infrastructure, and peoples’ livelihood options have suffered. Ask anyone around the forest — the impacts of deforestation are clear.
Over the past 15 years, the forest has been cleared for charcoal and timber, reducing the number of permanent rivers flowing from eight to one.
Eden partners with a local forest trust, the Kijabe Forest Trust, regional and national government institutions, and the surrounding agricultural and pastoral communities to restore this crucial forest. We are working to re-establish a sustainable water supply through protecting and replanting around springs and rivers, restoring habitat for wildlife, stabilizing steep slopes prone to landslides, and securing livelihoods. Over the past couple of years, Eden has expanded its operations in Kenya to the Mau Region, the Meru Region, the Tana River Delta, and Nakuru county.
What’s next?
By 2022, WeForest hopes (with our help and others) to achieve the following goals in the Copperbelt:
- 100 farmers from the Mpongwe District Farmers’ Association (DFA) are expected to participate in the restoration program with an expected average of 5 ha per farmer.
- 25 farmers from Ndola’s Chinchi Wababili Women Farmers’ Association in Ndola are expected to participate in the program with an expected average of 3-5 ha. This amounts to the regeneration of about 700,000 trees.
- 1250 beehives will be installed for these 125 newly trained farmers.
Follow this link for WeForest’s overall report.
Discover our recent blog about our tree planting project in Mozambique, together with Eden Reforestation Projects.
