The Mau forest in the Rift Valley : Kenya's largest water tower : a perfect model for the challenges and opportunities of a sustainable development project?
Nabutola, Wafula
Cutting of trees has been going on for decades. In those days, the 500s, 600s and 700s school children were expected to regularly bring a tree seedling from home for replanting on the school compound or to be given to the faculty who either planted them on the school compound or took them home. There was a rule that for every tree cut two must be planted. People got arrested if they flouted this rule. Since then things have changed, there is persistent cutting but no replanting. Those who need wood fuel, charcoal and the loggers who want lumber for construction, etc. As a result there is a serious net deficit in number of trees. Forests have been depleted mainly through logging; saw milling and charcoal burning Mau forest is Kenya's largest water tower - it stores rain during the wet seasons and pumps it out during the dry months. It used to cover 400 thousand hectares, but 100 thousands of these have been expropriated. The Mau Forest Task Force identified the period between 1996 and 2005 as the worst decade for the forest cover in the country. But during the past 15 years, more than 100,000 hectares - one quarter of the protected forest reserve - have been settled and cleared. Tearing out the trees at the heart of Kenya has triggered a cascade of drought and despair in the surrounding hills and valleys.
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