Hope in a Changing Climate

Post date: Sep 20, 2010 5:41:34 PM

A much prized, mind-moving documentary, shown twice on the BBC - must see! "Hope in a Changing Climate".

Watch the film

This is indeed what Kenya needs... This video and another one "Lessons from the Loess Plateau" give a good impression of what can be done, and what PLUS-Kenya wants to help achieve.

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?

The lessons are "ELPEE":

    1. Educate, educate, for a mind shift, understanding the value of biodiversity in functional eco-systems, functionality not just for production...

    2. Land tenure: to convince local people, assure they remain the tenants of the land

    3. Participation of stakeholders at all management levels

    4. Employment creating solutions: engage many young people

    5. Extension, evaluation, up-scaling.

This is to REAP these results:

    1. Rural development, based on

    2. Economic use of land for farming, together with

    3. Appreciation of land set aside for conservation, rehab of natural vegetation

    4. Profit making AND pro-poor development.