Promoting Sustainable Forest Governance and Climate Change Adaptation for Improved Livelihoods in Kenya
Project Overview:
Kenya is internationally considered to be a low forest cover country as it has less than 10% of its total land area classified as forests. Poor forest governance has plagued this country since independence and has contributed to the current forest cover that is barely at 2%. Some of the pertinent issues that resulted into the poor forest governance are inadequate public participation, deficient laws and policies and overlapping institutional mandates governing the forest sector.
It is now widely accepted that addressing climate change without stopping global forest degradation and deforestation is impossible and as a result forest issues have risen up the international agenda. As a result, focus has now shifted on promoting the use of forest ecosystem to address climate change mitigation through the Reducing Emission from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) and the emerging concept of Carbon Markets. However, whereas such initiatives such as REDD+ provides a great opportunity to preserve the dwindling forest cover for the future, there is need for Kenya to focus on promoting sustainable forest governance, strong enforcement and safeguards to overcome challenges and risks such emerging concepts may have on the local communities who may be implementing them in form of projects.
It is against this backdrop that ILEG is working towards advocating for the formulation of supporting policies and laws that would ensure the promotion of sustainable forest governance in Kenya as well as guarantee, first, full participation of the local communities in forest management, secondly, equitable benefit sharing mechanism to support their livelihoods, and lastly, capacity building for the local communities, county governments, and government departments. The main activities within the project involves, research around three (3) thematic areas, supporting stakeholders discourse on natural resource governance within the counties, and supporting policy discourse on climate change both at the national and county levels.
Upcoming Events:
- County Forums in Kilifi and Kwale County on Natural Resource Governance .
Date: 16th – 19th January 2013
- Engagement with Key Forest Stakeholders in Kilifi and Kwale Counties in promoting PFM through the development of Forest Management Agreements and Forest Management Plans
Date: 16th – 19th January 2013
