Kiambogoko’s potential for FMNR

June 11, 2013

The environment in Western Kenya is seriously compromised and because of that livelihoods and child wellbeing outcomes are in jeopardy. A degraded environment is much less able to buffer the worst effects of either too little or too much rain, hence the impact of drought and flood are much greater than they would have otherwise been; eroded and infertile soils are less able to produce high yielding crops, thus impacting food security and income; biodiversity is reduced, impacting directly on resilience. Even hope is lost as people contemplate degraded landscapes daily and the futility of farming such unproductive land.

However, just as ‘there is hope for a tree, for if it is cut down, it will sprout again’,

there is hope for the environment, and hence hope for the community.

Kiambogoko has high potential for FMNR:

  • there is strong community interest and recognition of the need for reforestation.
  • enthusiastic champions who are already practicing FMNR on their own land already exist
  • there is a high level of understanding and skill in the community on tree management
  • there is strong institutional support from local government and forestry and agriculture departments (backed by national targets to realize 10% tree cover on farmland
  • multiple stakeholders including environmental groups, youth, women, farmers associations are supportive of this project.
  • physically, there is no reason why FMNR would not work in Kiambogoko because in the grazing land and farmland sites visited, thousands of sprouting tree stumps and self-sown seedlings were present.

Tony Rinaudo is Natural Resources Advisor for the Food Security and Climate Change Team at World Vision Australia. Tony’s FMNR techniques have already been adopted by farmers in different parts of the world and contributed to over five million hectares of land being revegetated in Niger alone.

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