• Reference: P-KE-AAD-004
• Approval date: 12/10/2005
• Start date: 16/03/2006
• Appraisal Date: 30/06/2005
• Status: OngoingOnGo
• Implementing Agency: MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE
• Location: Highland areas of Kenya

In order to attain these objectives, the project will implement activities under the following components:

i) Natural Forest Conservation, comprising three sub-components:

(i) Natural forests rehabilitation;

(ii) Participatory natural forest management; and

(iii) Restoration of county council hilltops and watersheds. This component is aimed at re-vegetating 11,400 ha of degraded natural forests in gazetted forest reserves; protecting and sustainably managing 48,000 ha of natural forests through community participation, as well as re-vegetating 4,800 ha of county council hilltops and watersheds; and 150 km of forest roads improved.

ii) Buffer Belt Watershed Management, comprising three sub-components:

(i) Reforestation of 500 ha of natural forests in environmentally sensitive areas (ESA);

(ii) Establishment of 5,000 ha of fuelwood plantations, and

(iii) consolidation of 1,500 ha of tea buffer belts; 232 km of access roads improved; about 1.6 million m3 of fuel wood and 3,500 tons of tea leaves produced by PY8.

iii) Support to Forest Adjacent Communities, including;

(i) Promotion of woodlot establishment (6,000 ha, involving 7,200 households, (of which 1 ,944 are female-headed) and 300 schools));

(ii) agro-forestry development on 10,800 ha involving 7,200 households, of which 1,944 are female-headed; and

(iii) household livelihoods/ income enhancement involving over 17,000 households, of which 6,800 (40%) will be represented by women. Benefit models at household levels show an NPV of KSH 208,000 for woodlot establishment and NPV of KSH 405,260 for agro-forestry development, as well an annual net benefit of KSH 146,000 for micro-irrigation and KSH 109,400 for bee keeping; About 2.61 million m3 of fuelwood produced by PY8.

iv) Project Coordination and Management, including support to the two implementing agencies - the Forest Department (FD) and the Nyayo Tea Zones Development Corporation (NTZDC).

The project objectives are:

To promote forest regeneration and conservation for environmental protection

To improve rural livelihoods and incomes of communities living adjacent to the forests.

The protection and restoration of the natural forest in the gazetted forest reserves, the 'water towers' of Kenya is essential for the well being of the Nation. Environmental degradation is already impacting negatively on agricultural soils, rural water supply sources, and plant and animal diversity that are important for sustaining life and the tourism industry of Kenya.

In the past, the Government has been perceived as weak on forest protection. The new Forest Bill innovatively aims to redress the situation by involving the local communities and allowing them to benefit from non-destructive use of the forests. Experience has shown that no amount of policing can protect the forest if the community is not behind it. Once the benefit to the community of the forest exceeds that of alternative uses they will be active in conservation. This project will play an important role in initiating the envisaged improvement needed in forest management as stipulated in the bill.

Building on the successes of the NTZIFCP in establishing buffer zones around the gazetted forest, the Project will extend conservation to areas within the forest both by physical restoration of the natural forest and by promoting participatory management and benefit sharing by local communities. Within and adjacent to the buffer zones the Project will promote benefit sharing for sustainability of the buffer belt approach. Part of this is to increase incomes from non-wood forest products by introducing improved technologies and marketing. Women form a majority of the beneficiary community and Project design pays particular attention to their inclusion.

There are still some gaps in the buffer belt in critical areas, to halt further encroachment these gaps will be filled by consolidation with tea and fuelwood plantations. The gazetted forest, although an important part of the water catchment area is limited in area. The Project will extend the tree based conservation work beyond the gazetted forest and into settled areas, working with farmers on agro-forestry and private fuelwood plantations for income, conservation, and to reduce the pressure on the forest for wood products.

Local authorities control areas of vulnerable hilltops and steep lands outside of the gazetted forest. In the past, little has been done to conserve or rehabilitate these areas. As part of the outreach into the community the Project will work with County Councils on these areas. Schools, and other public institutions will also be included in tree promotion activities.

The lessons of experience discussed in para 3.5.5 have been taken into consideration in the design of the project. The use of two implementation agencies, namely FD and NTZDC poses a challenge to the administrative aspects of implementation but also offers real opportunities for capitalising on the comparative advantages of each of the two institutions. Since both work for the conservation of gazetted forests, developing a close working relationship between them and other agencies such as KEFRI is a secondary goal of the project. FD possesses in-depth technical ability that can be combined with the less bureaucratic procedures of a parastatal organisation, such as NTZDC, for effective project implementation. NTZDC possesses experience in procurement and disbursement relating to Bank financed activities. The Project steering and technical committees will assure coordination and collaboration in implementation. The project components have been chosen carefully in order to extend the benefits as widely as possible, particularly income generation for forest adjacent communities, whilst not loosing the conservation focus. In the interest of sustainability, the Project will make use of the existing staff of FD supplemented by limited use of consultants. Community activities will be facilitated by existing local NGOs and CBOs and other service providers. In some cases, local farmers will be contracted to provide goods and services such as seedlings and conservation work. They will receive capacity building to enable them to provide these services. Thus, some project resources will be invested in the local community. This approach is in line with Bank's policy on poverty reduction. The involvement of KEFRI in on-farm demonstration is considered necessary for choice of appropriate technologies and tree species, including controlled planting of eucalyptus in drier areas except for use as fuelwood.

Forest degradation continues to remain a major factor in Kenya. The impact that forest degradation has on the land and its productive potential is well known - erosion, sedimentation, flooding and drought. With only about 19 percent of the total land being appropriate for productive agriculture, and population growing at nearly 2.4 percent per annum, there is little alternative but to undertake appropriate measures to preserve the forests. The main factors leading to forest degradation are the unsustainable extraction of fuelwood and timber and the change of forest lands into agricultural lands, be it through gradual encroachment by local smallholders or through substantial degazettment as forest reserves and subsequent sale. The issue of unsustainable extraction of forest resources will have to be tackled through a variety of measures that would focus on better policies, surveillance and policing.

However, with respect to the more insidious dimension of gradual encroachment into forest reserves, the measures needed would include activities that combine the production of fuelwood on farmer's plots and participatory management of natural forests to reduce pressure. The successful implementation of the concept of the establishment of buffer belts around the major forest areas to halt gradual encroachment, as implemented under the first phase project, provides the rationale for greater coverage and consolidation. At the same time, there is a need to undertake measures that would protect the indigenous forests. Apart from small-scale sporadic efforts, past efforts in participatory forestry management at a substantial scale have been limited for some time. Now that the forest bill 2003 has added more support, the proposed project will also serve as a model for further intervention in the forestry and environmental sectors and play the role of keeping forest protection and conservation in focus in the Government's development objectives.

The Project will have additional positive impacts on the lives of people living adjacent to the forests. The main beneficiaries of the rehabilitation and sustained management of forests resources will be the empowered communities adjacent to the forest areas, particularly the various organized groups currently involved in forestry development. Directly about 17,000 households living within 5 km from the forest boundary will benefit from support to community initiatives and another 14,400 households will benefit from woodlot development and agro-forestry promotion on their farms. Under the various conservation activities, the project will create employment opportunities for casual labour valued at about US$ 11million dollars in 6 years. Women will be the major beneficiaries and providers of development casual labour inputs. Indirectly about 300,000 households representing a population of about 1.5 million will be impacted by the project. Institutional strengthening in form of training on innovative conservation methods, of particularly the indigenous forests, will additionally benefit both the forestry and the wildlife staff. The downstream population will also benefit from the orderly and increased water flow from the better-managed water catchments as more dried-up streams and rivers regenerate following improved catchment protection. Altogether, the project will provide 88,000 ha of forest protection and this will improve Kenya's overall water catchments. Globally, rehabilitation of the forest areas will enhance biodiversity conservation and also lead to a bigger role in carbon sequestration as a result of increased forest cover - all this benefiting the international communities.

The main environmental benefits associated with forestry conservation are reduced soil erosion and the attendant siltation of water bodies. The sponge effect of well-managed forests will lead to more orderly flow of water even in dry seasons rather than having most of it as floods. This is an important benefit because most of the poor people who require water for domestic and irrigation purposes do not have enough resources to build water storage dams. Reduction of poverty by provision of forest goods and services will contribute to environmental protection and improvement, considering the fact that most of the environmental degradation in Kenya can be attributed to poverty. The poorer the people, the more they rely on forest resources for subsistence and income generation.

MAINA Onesmus Waweru - OSAN4

Finance source	Amount
ADF	UAC 25,040,000
Government	UAC 6,470,000
Total	UAC 31,510,000