This project will help restore Kenya's only tropical rainforest while supporting farmers surrounding the forest in adapting income-generating activities compatible with the forest's ecology. The project will alleviate climate change by increasing tree cover while helping local farmers to adapt to a changing climate.

Challenge

The Kakamega Rainforest is gradually being destroyed through illegal logging and conversion to subsistence agriculture. A feedback loop exists through which the loss of the forest, combined with climate change, decreases the fertility of farmland in the area surrounding the forest. The farmers are under pressure to convert more forest land to agriculture and to farm the land more intensively, resulting in soil erosion and further loss of land productivity.

Long-Term Impact

The Kakamega Rainforest Restoration project will serve as a demonstration that ecologically sustainable farming practices can contribute to ecosystem restoration and climate change alleviation while increasing the economic well-being of local farmers. We hope and expect that this approach will be adopted throughout the forest area, in other parts of Kenya and throughout Africa.

References

1. https://www.facebook.com/Kakamega-Rainforest-Restoration-Project-100735338832649

Additional Documentation

https://www.globalgiving.org//pfil/51941/projdoc.docx

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