PLUS-Kenya - REVERSING LAND DEGRADATION, CHANGING PEOPLE'S LIVES
Elise Pinners, TVNI Director
Dear Vetiver friends in Kenya, as PLUS-Kenya is preparing to enter
'the field' it is a good time to reflect on its vision and mission.
The current visit of John D. Liu to this country, and his presentation
of the movie "Hope in a Changing Climate" is what we need!
http://hopeinachangingclimate.org/watch-the-film/
PLUS-Kenya’s Vision is a Kenyan society enabled to manage Land and
Water Resources sustainably. Our Mission is to have organisations and
individuals motivated to adopt sustainable Land and Water Resource
Management practices. How to enable and motivate?
To reverse land degradation it is good to promote innovations for land
& water resource management. But for this to have an impact it is very
important to create a better understanding of what lies beneath, the
roots, a higher understanding or 'paradigm shift' in which we
fundamentally understand the value of vegetation/biodiversity, and the
importance or pure necessity of reversing degradation, for ourselves
and the future generation.
John Liu's movie shows that - if only the value of the environmental
function of vegetation is understood - severely dis-functional
landscapes, degraded over years of agricultural malpractice, and other
abuses, can be restored and become functional within a really short
time!
It needs education, to understand that in some areas, by education,
increasing areas for natural vegetation and reducing the availability
of farm land one can bring about increased production, as it forces
farmers to adopt more intensive (read: less degrading) farming
practices, in which water infiltration is optimized, and fertility
used more efficiently, whereas the natural vegetation brings back
services that had disappeared in the period of degradation: e.g.
supply of clean water, fuel, fodder.
The cases provided in the movie (restoration projects in China',
Ethiopia & Rwanda) are of enormous scale, and considered of national
importance. The result is stunning: it really improved lives for
large numbers of people. We need to do something like this in Kenya.
Please, tell me, which area should be start? Taveta? Budalang'i
catchment? Kerio Valley?
PLUS-Kenya: to get innovations to stick and to stay, we use CLAY
C: change the understanding, recognize the value of vegetation/
biodiversity for functional landscapes
L: lead communities into the new approach, reshaping the landscape
sustainably, to
A: alter their lives in very significant ways:
Y: yielding more food and water, for us and our children.
or KLEI:
K: knowledge & understanding of landscape functionality,
L: leadership to envision stakeholders, to act on a significant scale,
to bring
E: economic incentives for all stakeholders including our children,
recognizing the
I: intrinsic value of vegetation/biodiversity.
PLUS-Kenya will soon launch its website: www.pluskenya.org
As for solutions, to restore a landscape we draw on a wealth of good
practices bringing us community land-use planning, re-vegetation of
forests and pastures, on-farm innovations, and innovations related to
infrastructure protection (bio-engineering).
Innovations like those found Vetiver Systems (www.vetiver.org) will be
highly relevant, supporting re-vegetation on waste land or polluted
land and in many farming areas it will be central in bringing back
soil fertility and humidity.
PLUS-Kenya will put relevant sites on its website, including
http://www.wocat.net/en.html (World Overview of Conservation
Approaches & Technologies); www.earthshope.org; www.blog.earthshope.org;
http://www.biofuelsdigest.com/; www.eemp.org (Environmental Education
Media Project).
Elise
PLUS-Kenya Boardmember, Director of Green Cycle Consulting Ltd.
www.greencycleconsulting.com
Agnes Mwamburi
Hi elise, Thanks alot for remembering me.
It long since our last communication. I am sorry I am overwhelmed by work. Rift Valley had held me tight and I feel squeezed. Too much Children issues fear of voter expectation in 2012 are making some of us geared to take more precautions. Environmental degradation I am trying to conceptualize it as Violence against children which we need to mitigate. Believe me as a Rift Valley Provincial Child Right Network (RVPCRN) Resource Mobilizing Coordinator, this is one of my advocacy concept toward ensuring the future generation a sustainable livelihood.
Your in my mind always
Be blessed
Agnes
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