FOMAWA: Working to Replant Mau Forest

Interviewee

Jacob Mwanduka

Executive Director, FOMAWA /Friends of the Mau Watershed

Interviewers

Alison M. Jones

NWNL Director and Photographer

Alison M Fast

Videographer

Njoro and the Mau Forest, Kenya, on September 20 and 21, 2009

Introductory Note

Our expedition was fortunate to drive by a friendly cluster of local Mau Forest settlers on the road, who were happy to discuss with us their plight of having come here since their farms were dry. Interestingly it was their geography lessons in school that drew them to the Mau Forest. However that much of that forest and its small streams were already gone. NWNL listened to their frustrated dreams, reality and concerns for their future. Their farms in lower elevations had become unsustainable and the Mau Forest as well was suffering from lack of rains due to Kenya’s increasingly severe drought cycles. Martin – and others like him – were caught in a trap that forced them to find a new way to survive.

But their new farms’ use of water remaining in the Mau worsened drought difficulties of many more downstream. Now their land was no longer receiving the benefit of the Mau’s role as a water tower for millions surrounding this elevated forest.

Outline

A FOREST UNDER THREAT
EARLIER HUMAN IMPACTS on the MAU
FOMAWA’S GOALS & SOLUTIONS
WAYS to USE LESS FUELWOOD
JACOB as our MAU FOREST GUIDE

Key Quotes Mau Forest and its watershed supports over one third of Kenya’s population in terms of water, tourism, food, timber, and its livestock. That is a huge constituency. – Jacob Mwanduka

The forest used to discharge water to this stream throughout the year. But now, around 7 to 8 years down the line, it has dried up. It is no longer functional. This is a clear indication of how the destruction of the forest has negatively impacted the availability of water in this area. – Jacob Mwanduka

A FOREST UNDER THREAT

NWNL Hello Jacob. Thank you for giving your time to help us understand the the value of the Mau Forest to the Mara River Basin, which downstream includes Kenya’s Maasai Mara National Reserve and Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park. Thus, the health of this forest and its role as source of the Mara River is critical to the fate of Maasai Mara’s savannah, millions of wildebeest and zebra, many wild cats, antelopes and so many other wild species. Thus, No Water No Life is focusing on the Mau Forest’s values and how to address its recent degradation.

JACOB MWANDUKA Thank you for coming here. It’s estimated that the Mau Forest and its watershed supports over one third of Kenya’s population in terms of water, tourism, food, timber, and its livestock. That is a huge constituency. It also supports northwestern Tanzania’s residents, livestock and tourism. So, this forest is a very important ecosystem for both Kenya and Tanzania.

However, over the years, the Mau has lost over 70% of its forests due to various human activities – encroachment by people into the forest as they seek , illegal logging, and charcoal burning. Those reasons alone create a huge impact on the water available to Kenyan, especially those living directly downstream and within the Mara River Basin.

EARLIER HUMAN IMPACTS on the MAU

JACOB MWANDUKA Today’s problems affecting the Mau Forest started with national issues over the last hundred years that evolved with the coming of East African Railways. That caused large amounts of firewood from Mau Forest to transported to the ports and used to fire the steamships of that time. Then came British farmers who attracted local people to this part around the Mau to work for them. When we got independence [in 1963], the British people left. The African farmers were left behind and they started sub-dividing the land into small-scale holdings. With them, also came their friends and the land was further sub-divided for more farms.

But the huge destruction of Mau Forest is traced to the last 15 years when people got land for votes, and our politicians rewarded themselves for loyalty to the government of the day at that time. That is when the greatest destruction really started to intensify.

During those last 15 years, small-scale farmers were moved from lower elevations [in the Mau Mountain Range] to higher elevations – which actually is better land for farming, but then was dense forest. So, the upper forest gave way to small-scale owners, who in turn gave politicians their votes. All in the same breath, those politicians were loyal to their bosses who also took advantage of this rich and valuable watershed. They allocated themselves over 100 acres, where the peasant farmers got 5 acres. That has created a huge challenge, and the government needs to do something to rectify that problem.

NWNL So, the original settlers exchanged land for votes? Has that been the biggest problem?

JACOB MWANDUKA The current problem started when we were given land in exchange for votes, and that’s where the problem is now.

FOMAWA’S GOALS & SOLUTIONS

NWNL Okay, now talk about FOMAWA, your goals and possible solutions to correct that problem.

JACOB MWANDUKA This organization we call FOMAWA represents a group of us trying to rectify the deforestation that threatens the Mara headwaters. Our number one goal is to spread education on this subject to the young, catching them when young. Secondly, we are, spreading environmental education and linkages between people’s livelihoods and the forest by talking to the farmers and working with them within their farms and within their neighborhoods to rectify the problem. Thirdly, we are working with and pushing the government to put sensible policies into laws which will protect the Mau ecosystem. Fourthly, we working with the media to spread information to the general members of the public at local, national and international levels.

NWNL What are the specific on-the-ground actions you are recommending?

JACOB MWANDUKA Some of the practical answers we’re trying to address involves working with the farmers to help reforest their farms with the goal of putting 10% of their land into forestry. We are also working with the local women to install fuel-efficient stoves to reduce the amount of wood being burned in the kitchen.

Beyond our local efforts, FOMAWA is working with the policy makers and various levels of government to adopt sensible policies and laws which will encourage the masses and the government to protect the forest.

NWNL What hopes do you have that this will work?

JACOB MWANDUKA Despite all problems and the challenges we face in trying to restore Mau, I feel the future is bright. The government has started evicting people from the forest. Plans for reforestation have been put into place, and the general Kenyan public appreciates the magnitude of the problem, so they are ready to do something about it.

WAYS to USE LESS FUELWOOD

NWNL The use of kilns is one of FOMAWA’s solutions you are promoting. Do explain your thoughts on fostering more use of clay pots and charcoal kilns. How can clay pots reduce the needed amount of wood for cooking?

JACOB MWANDUKA We are working with the local women by supplying them with fuel-efficient wood stoves which saves 40-50% of the firewood burned, compared to the African tradition of cooking over a three-stone fire.

Once we manage to deliver them these stoves to as many people as we can, we hope the resulting reduced usage of firewood will be reduced, hence saving forest in one way or another.

JACOB MWANDUKA Also, working with the large-scale farmers, we have these big charcoal kilns which, again, efficiently create charcoal, hence reducing the amount of charcoal being used especially by the urbanites in this country.

All these initiatives are geared towards saving the forest because the amount of wood coming out of the forest will be reduced in a big way by about half. Additionally, it will reduce the time women spend to go all the way to the forest to look for charcoal or collect firewood.

JACOB as our MAU FOREST GUIDE

JACOB MWANDUKA Now, as we leave this kiln, we will head towards the Mau Forest’s source of the Mara River – to try to find the exact spot from which the Enyapuiyapui Swamp becomes a flowing stream. En route, we will go to villages where people have been settled by the government, and perhaps chat with some of those villagers. We may also meet up with some illegal settlers living in the forest who will be evicted sooner rather than later from the government. Then, later we will go to a village where FOMAWA has assisted members of the community, including helping some women in installing the fuel-efficient stoves.

JACOB MWANDUKA You see now as we continue on, where the town of Elburgon ends and where the forest used to start, not so long ago. It’s ten years since the forest was replaced by small-scale farmers.

Elburgon itself has been here for time immemorial, but it was not as expansive when it used to be the headquarters for East and Central Africa’s timber productions concerns. Some of the timber merchants exported the timber to Germany, the UK, and other countries. But this is no longer the case, because all the plantation forest is gone and so is the indigenous forest. All that land turned to small subsistence agriculture.˙

Here at the end of the town is the start of the farmland. It was all forest from the edge of Elburgon all the way up to the source of Mara. But now it has all been turned into small scale agriculture.

What has been reported as our post-election violence here was terrible. People seem to take forests and pristine lands for granted. But once you lose them, they are very, very difficult to get them back. People killed each other, people maimed each other; but worst of all is the amount of property which was lost. It was amazing. Animals and people were killed.

Horror happened around this part of the world. But to me it was not post-election violence. It was not. It was not. We had been warned about the people here and tribalism. By December 19th, some members of a particular community were still evicting other people from their homes and sending them away. By Christmas, it was worse. Even before we came to election, it was bad.

JACOB MWANDUKA Okay – we are now on the road going south from Elburgon towards the Enyapuiyapui Swamp. I used this road for the first time in 1996. Here you see a stream bed where water then was flowing. The forest used to discharge water to this stream throughout the year. But now, around 7 to 8 years down the line, it has dried up. It is no longer functional. This is a clear indication of how the destruction of the forest has negatively impacted the availability of water in this area.

At one time, this open land you see used to be a forest. That was 10 years ago, but it was turned into a small-scale agriculture. These people have not settled in, simply because they know at one time or another they’ll be kicked out because they have no land-ownership documents. Here we see people coming in to farm this land and then leaving, simply because they know they are living where they should not be living.

NWNL So, the people come here to farm and to cut wood.

JACOB MWANDUKA When they allocated the lands, they were technically still government forest. So some who’ve settled here have title deeds and official letters; others have nothing. So, given all this confusion in mind, the new settlers have never settled here completely. They farm and then eventually move out.

NWNL Do most of the settlers feel free to cut trees here?

JACOB MWANDUKA Yes, first the trees are cut either by the government or by legal guys. I don’t know who cut which trees really. Settlers cut trees and then they decide to start farming. Look over there, you can see the stumps. This was once a forest land.

FOMAWA

NWNL Jacob, you’ve shown us the exciting and the depressing aspects of this forest – its swampy source of the Mara River that flows down across Kenya into Tanzania and empties into Lake Victoria. You have also shown us is terribly upsetting devastation of this largest water tower in Kenya.

But to balance that, we have been encouraged by the vision of FOMAWA and your explanation of its innovative solutions. We wish you great success in facing a large problem with informed and straightforward determination to find solutions, step by step. Do stay in touch and let us hear about the successes we are sure you will have.

Posted by NWNL on June 19, 2024.
Transcription edited and condensed for clarity by Alison M. Jones.

FOMAWA: Working to Replant Mau Forest Mara River Basin