Kwale women plant trees, long for benign climate
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Loading... - Ojwang Sila
- 27 Apr 2022
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Planting trees is also the little thing of a group of eight volunteers in Kwale.
It is 8am and a number of women are busy watering seedlings and weeding them at the Kenya Forest Service station in Kwale county.
Some are carrying babies on their backs.
Occasionally, one or two stand upright, hold their hands akimbo and take deep breaths.
The air is fresh and they are surrounded by greenery. One would be forgiven for thinking the area receives adequate rains.
But the sad reality is that outside the station, drought is wreaking havoc.
And the women have taken a step to fight it.
Nunu Hassan, one of the eight women volunteering at Kwale KFS, says she started to conserve the environment following the increased effects of climate change.
Hassan says has chosen to sacrifice her time planting tree nurseries to avert more disasters.
"Climate change is threatening our existence. That's why I decided to do something before it's too late," she says.
We are already grappling with climate change, Hassan points out.
Take Kwale town, for instance, it used to have a benign climate but nowadays the coolness is no more, she adds.
Illegal logging and charcoal burning have wiped out most of the county's forests. Charcoal burning thrives in Samburu, Kinango and Lunga Lunga subcounties.
Kwale KFS Ecosystem Conservator Maghanga Blessington says the region's forest coverage is at 5.2 per cent.
Hassan and the other women believe they have an obligation to protect the environment and restore Kwale's once beautiful forests.
What they do
In partnership with KFS and Worldwide Fund for Nature - Kenya, the women are growing tree seedlings and managing tree nurseries.
They grow exotic and indigenous trees for the restoration of Shimba Hills Forest.
By December last year, they had grown 250,000 seedlings, says station manager Edwin Misachi.
The women developed a passion for environmental conservation while engaged in Kazi Mtaani where their task was tree planting.
When the programme ended, they chose to stay on as volunteers.
The women spend three hours daily taking care of the tree nurseries.
This is a huge sacrifice as most of them are married and have school-going children to look after.
Fatuma Saidi says they wake up early to prepare their children for school before reporting to the station.
They prepare seedling beds and mix manure. "We inspect the seedlings each day to ensure the trees are growing correctly and healthy," Saidi says.
Some of the seedlings are sold to potential buyers to avoid losses.
Indigenous seedlings go for Sh15 each while the exotic species are sold for Sh10.
The remaining seedlings are planted in public and private forestland to help achieve 10 per cent forest cover.
The women are not the only ones involved in conservation.
Mbodze Nyawa from Dzombo Adjacent Forest Community Association says they grow seedlings to fight climate change and generate income.
In 2018 they planted 6,000 seedlings, which earned them Sh221,000.
They sold the seedlings to WWF who gave them to Kwale forest communities to plant.
Currently, they are restoring Dzombo, Shimba Hills and Mangrove forests. Read More…
