Sustainable mountain development in East Africa in a changing climate

Mau Forest Complex: Renewed Efforts to Save Kenya’s Water Tower the main source of livelihoods in the Rift Valley and provides invaluable goods and services to surrounding areas (NEMA, 2013). Key challenges

The Mau Forest complex is the largest closed canopy forest in Kenya and the largest indigenous montane forest in East Africa, located in the Eastern Rift Valley of Kenya (BirdLife International, 2013). The Mau Forest complex is divided into seven blocks: South-West Mau (Tinet), East Mau, Ol’donyo Purro, Transmara, Massai Mau, Western Mau and Southern Mau (Sang, 2001). The original gazetted forest area covered 452,007 ha, but a large part of the area was removed from protection in 2001, reducing the forest land area to approximately 416,542 ha (NEMA, 2013). The Mau Forest is recognized as the most important and critical water catchment in the Rift Valley and western Kenya, and it is the source of numerous rivers. Lake Victoria receives 60 per cent of its water from the Mau forest catchment. The Mau Forest is considered a water catchment of international importance and supports a wealth of biodiversity, some of which is of concern to international conservation bodies. It is also

irregular forest land allocation and illegal extraction of forest resources. The Mau Forest has served as home to different groups of indigenous people like the Massai and the Ogiek (Sang, 2001) who consider the forest as their ancestral home. The plan to use tea plantations as a buffer zone may have been well-intentioned but the conversion of forest land into large-scale tea plantations has contributed to the immense loss of forest cover, partly because the designated size for the tea zone was not adhered to in all areas, resulting in excessive deforestation (NEMA, 2013). The establishment of large exotic tree plantations by major timber companies has also led to the replacement of indigenous forest with monoculture species. The strategy to enhance timber production using fast growing exotic species has resulted in a significant loss of biodiversity (NEMA, 2013). Policy actions A new understanding of the Mau Forest as a ‘water tower’ has catalysed resource mobilization and enabled actions to rehabilitate the Mau forest. In recognition of the impact of deforestation on economic activities and livelihoods and on a range of crucial ecosystem goods and services, the Government of Kenya convened a forum in 2009 to find ways to address the threats to the Mau Forest ecosystem, and a plan to rehabilitate the forest was proposed with a budget of USD 81 million (UNEP, 2010). The Government of Kenya developed a new forest policy with a commitment to manage all indigenous forests (including the Mau Forest complex) to conserve water, soil and biodiversity, and enhance the provision of forest goods and services (GoK, 2015).

Despite its status as the most important water tower of Kenya, the Mau Forest complex has been over- exploited due to a lack of institutional governance and a long-term strategic plan. The removal fromprotection of a large part of the forest has resulted in continuous widespread encroachment – the Mau Forest is now a quarter of the size it once was. This has severely disturbed the forest’s role in storing and distributing water to outlying areas. According to investigations by BirdLife International (2014), the Mau Forest has been affected by widespread unplanned settlement development,

Tea harvest in Kericho, Kenya

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