Can nature based solutions empower indigenous people?

Deforestation of Indigenous forests, loss of biodiversity, drying of springs and rivers and frequent droughts are major challenges in Taita hills in Kenya. This is due to encroachment of natural indigenous forests and illegal firewood, timber harvesting by the indigenous people or even by the caretakers of the forests in return for cash and current negative impacts of climate change. In addition, there is lack of literacy and awareness of the current negative impacts of climate change among the indigenous people. Poverty amongst people in this area is high. Equally the unemployed youth live very unproductive lives as they are not integrated in the societies.

The project will address the issue of education and awareness of climate change, empower the indigenous people to take afforestation, reforestation and agroforesrty as natured based solutions for climate change while integrating bee keeping as an  important eco-services activity and  individual or group tree nurseries as a direct link to the forest and agroforestry. Strengthen intergenerational and gender partnerships and collaborations will be fostered during the project. The empowered communities will lobby the county government to create conducive policies to protect the indigenous forests and water towers in Taita hills in Kenya. 

Taita Taveta is located in the southern part of the Kenya and it borders Tanzania and has four political constituencies namely Mwatate, Voi, Wundanyi and Taveta. The County headquarters are located in  Mwatate. The female gender in this county has not experienced the benefits of direct participation in governance and elected leadership positions since independence in 1963 and devolution as provided for in the Kenyan Constitution 2010. This has resulted in female gender under-representation in both elected leadership positions and formal employment in the county. Taita hills are located in Wundanyi constituency and the indigenous people are mainly small holder farmers inhabiting about Ha 0.5 or less. The unemployed youth equally are neglected with no meaningful engagement to better their lives. Taita-Taveta county population stands at 340,000 with the total Kenyan population of 56 million. The main tribe is Taita tribe which is about 60% of the Taita-Taveta population  followed by the Taveta tribe. Thus the Taita- Taveta people constitute 0.061% of Kenyan population and they fall under the minority group of Kenyan tribes. Based on this small percentage in the total Kenyan population, the county has not benefited in any nominated position into the national parliament despite having a legal instrument guiding representation of minority tribes at National parliament. The project is fully aligned to sustainable land use with a focus on climate resilient indigenous forests and sustainable food production by the indigenous people in Taita hills. The project in the process will be providing solutions to problems of those living in poverty, feeling the negative impacts of poor  environment and climate change, natural environment and human  conflict, gender inequality and falling in the group of disadvantaged communities due to lack of supportive forest policies at county level. The indigenous forests of Taita Hills, Kenya are one of the 34 world’s biodiversity Hot Spot areas. In Taita Hills, there is only about 6 km2  of indigenous forest left, leaving species dependent on these forests on the brink of extinction. The hills contain some of the highest levels of endemism in the world, forming a key part of the Eastern Afromontane Biodiversity Hotspot. They also serve as a catchment for the expansive Tsavo ecosystem.  

ASALFO field office is registered in Mwatate, Taita-Taveta. The ASALFO team is all from Taita-Taveta. We have been engaged with these indigenous people through small activities which include education in formal sector in mentorship activities in a few times offering scholarships for brilliant girls to access tertiary education, food and nutrition activities and at very small scale tree planting activities. In addition, these activities are undertaken with community-based organizations to facilitate massive mobilization of participants. We also use local administration as required by Kenyan law for mobilization of people to participate in community activities. With this direct engagement with the community, ASALFO is able to co-create solutions with the indigenous people.

Fifteen thousand people but at different levels.

ASALFO is looking for organizations engaged in carbon credit markets so that the indigenous people involved in afforestation, reafforastation and agro-forestry as natured based solutions for climate change negative impacts can start receiving some economic benefits for poverty alleviation. In addition, since bee keeping will be an integral part of this program, the community need to access export market for their honey for economic gain. These activities will engage the youth and communities at large.  

Deforestation of Indigenous forests, loss of biodiversity, drying of springs and rivers and frequent droughts are major challenges in Taita hills. This is due to encroachment of natural indigenous forests and illegal firewood, timber harvesting by the indigenous people or caretakers and current negative impacts of climate change. In addition, there is lack of literacy and awareness of the current negative impacts of climate change among the indigenous people. Taita-Taveta female gender has not fully experienced the benefits of direct participation in governance and elected leadership positions since independence in 1963. The project will address the issue of education and awareness of climate change, empower the indigenous people to take up natured based solutions for climate change and economic empowerment. Strengthening intergenerational and gender partnerships and collaborations will be fostered during the project. This project will create a community of practice for climate action in Taita hills through education and awareness on climate change, sustainable environmental conservation practices and poverty alleviation.The participants will be drawn from local indigenous people in the project site and all will have a composition of different abilities (PLWD), gender and generations. Further to this, there will be improved capacity of participating local communities to take decision on establishing woodlots or fruit trees coupled with bee keeping for home use and income generation.   Awareness through the use of “conventional” and “new media” while proactively engaging different generations and gender from the local communities in nature based solutions Taita hills for enhancement water value of the water towers. They will establish  tree seedlings nurseries managed by women and youth and in a period of five years planted two million seedlings in the forests and farms. Integration of stingless bee keeping will provide new income streams for the community. 

Overall goal: Overall goal is to improve adaptive capacity and livelihoods of smallholders to climate and economic changes. 

1. To create a community of practice amongst the different generations for climate action in Taita hills through education and awareness on climate change, sustainable environmental conservation practices and poverty alleviation.
2. To empower and strengthen skills and knowledge of women for advocacy and policy-making.
3. Proactively engaging different generations and gender from the local communities in nature based solutions Taita hills for enhancement water value of the water towers.
4. Co-create a new ways of delivering healthy climate smart crops planting materials.

Once the funds are received inception meetings are crucial for all stakeholders to familiarize fully with project mandate.  In Kenya, grassroots’ mobilization is done in conjunction with local area administration for harmony, ownership and accountability. The leadership of the local Community Based Organizations (CBOs) will be engaged in the process of identification. Other relevant actors from the innovation and knowledge centers will be involved in the planned workshops. Once the group formation is done, focused group discussions will be held on climate change and strategies the indigenous people are currently using. The local and indigenous knowledge will help further shape the implementation strategies and also facilitate ownership of new innovations and knowledge the project proposes to embed in mitigation against negative impacts of climate change. These processes will allow inclusion and ownership of the project by indigenous people during the project cycle and beyond. The workshop participants serve as the nucleus for the indigenous people to further mobilize others with the support of local administration and ASALFO during tree planting activities and also become trainers of trainers for other nature based economic activities. In to year four at least 6400  indigenous people across different gender and intergenerational including different abilities (PLWD who are now part of a community of practice for climate action in Taita hills through education and awareness on climate change, sustainable environmental conservation practices and poverty alleviation. These people know they are powerhouse for nature based solutions for climate action and that if properly applied can change how they manage the forests for community benefits especially the water resource. It shall be a movement for change on how they manage and respond to any environmental challenges.  Further to this, there will be improved capacity of participating local communities to take decision on establishing woodlots or fruit trees coupled with bee keeping for home use and income generation. Empowerment workshops for women and youth for gender and social inclusion in the community will be done to proactively engage different generations and gender from the local communities in nature based solutions Taita hills for enhancement water value of the water towers. The project will establish twenty  tree seedlings nurseries managed by women and youth and in a period of four  years planted atleast 5 million seedlings in the forests and farmsand integrated stingless bee keeping for incomes. The project team will co-create new ways of delivering healthy climate smart crops planting materials:  Link up with knowledge centers with climate smart planting materials like cassava, sweet potatoes and millets which are not stocked by agro-vets and also value addition technologies and the process create youth and women entrepreneurs from the nature based solutions. The demand for honey and more so organic honey from forests is high and this will provide stable incomes for the indigenous people making forests or trees part of their rural livelihoods and no longer in conflict.

Awareness creation on the negative impacts of climate change which are linked to indigenous people’s action towards forests will itself ignite thorough in depth thinking and discussions as people are going through the negative impacts of climate change. All of a sudden people are seeing streams/rivers drying around them. In year one atleast 10,000 people will participate in nature based activities and by fourth years aleast 100,000 people will be in part of the climate action team. Use of social media platforms especially whatsApp and local radio stations will be used to inform the indigenous people. The nature based solutions will be deployed in the Taita Hills namely Vuria, Iyale, Wesu, Ngangao, Vururu, Mwambirwa, Saghala and Wongonyi hills. The communities around will take up agro-forestry and climate smart farming activities. Collective actions at grassroots’ levels are crucial to solving global challenges (think globally but act locally to be able to handle the SGDs). The different partners regardless to their backgrounds or level of education know they have a role to play to bring the changes we are looking for to reverse the negatives impacts of climate change. To handle climate change there is need to use multifaceted approaches or form multi-stakeholder partnership platforms. This project has provided candid mechanisms to engage the lowest stakeholder whose very livelihood is directly derived from   planet earth. This further emphasizes the urgent need for financial support to the global south to start taking proactive steps in climate action to deepen their actions as the agents of change. The unemployed youth start to engage in eco-service activities. The empowered stakeholders know they have a stake in the indigenous forests and proactively contribute towards policy formulation to protect the unique global biodiversity hot spots.

We have the knowledge and innovations but lack resources to engage with the indigenous people at scale to deal with climate change negative impacts. We are using our knowledge on nature based solutions for different agro-ecosystems but to have a large reach resources are greatly needed. This will be further supported by social media apps like whatsApp as indigenous people are starting to use the cheaper smart phones to join whatsApp platforms. In addition, the project will require a good support from communication media people who are reporting on climate change in Kenya. In addition, ASALFO team has the capacity to create cohesive working teams around an important issues which are of interest to the communities and knowledgeable on group dynamics and how to harness the best from different stakeholders. Once the project is in place ASALFO will work with IT expert to create an app for nature based solutions. 

The proposed project will create an enabling environment for all to express their views during the organized meetings/workshops regardless to their gender orientation. This is critical as Taita people in Taita-Taveta are patriarchal. The project will ensure social inclusivity and avoid any form of discrimination. Finance for resilience will be achieved in this project through integration of establishing tree seedlings in the project sites for sale during tree planting events, inclusion of agro-forestry and bee keeping and  availing agriculture innovations focusing on cassava value chains in the lower agro-ecozones and improved pasture for dairy and sweet potatoes vines in the upper zones. Special workshops will be held on climate literacy to help demystify some local beliefs of setting forests on fire to attract rains. The empowerment of young people will be achieved in their involved in this project and also in agri-business activities embedded in the project.  The project will ensure gender equity and social inclusivity by analyzing the various value chains proposed in the project. These include aforestation, reforestation, agro-forestry, bee keeping, cassava crop, sweet potatoes crop  and pasture as it relates to dairy farming.  Water for various household uses will be elaborated. The gaps along the value chains will be identified and gender roles elucidated. All these will done in the context of the current climate change. As a patriarchy tribe, the project will try to understand women leadership at the CBO level and its impact post project level. In addition, people living with disability and youth voice will be encouraged and their direct involvement will be embedded. The elderly people tend to be ignored yet they have knowledge and experience which is many times ignored yet critical for indigenous people survival as they have survived severe droughts before. ASALFO is women led NGO but will seek for technical support from MIT SOLVE  in this very important area where no one should be left behind in matters of climate change. 

In this proposal, we would like to scale up an integrated input and output marketing model that brings together various value chain actors to work together in concerted efforts to help increase indigenous people’s productivity and incomes. The focus is on Afforestation, reafforestation and agro-forestry coupled with bee keeping and climate smart farming  and in  this integrated model the indigenous people and emerging commercial farmers, financial institutions, agro dealers, traders, transporters, hub storage and other off takers will all be linked to indigenous people with reliable inputs, services and sustainable output market. In this regard we believe the integrated model will work because:

a)      An assured market for seedlings, honey and other markets for fruits from agro-forestry for indigenous  farmers will provide impetus them to invest time and also invest in production enhancing practices and inputs. In most case, farmers grow crops without an idea or guarantee where they will sell their produce. By purposefully working with stakeholders along the value chains  at the beginning of the project, identified indigenous farmers will be linked directly to buyers. In this way farmers can better plan their production.

b)      Small scale traders in the rural areas perform a critical bulk building function for large off takers. They are also the first level market for most farmers . These traders often pay cash at the farm gate, helping farmers meet short term cash demands. These traders are also entrepreneurial and have been found to offer other services besides produce purchase. Such services include provision of seeds and fertilizer. These services are often provided on credit and paid for by the farmer when produce is harvested and sold.

c)       Farmers not only need access to markets, they also need access to good quality seeds and fertilizers. Linking these input and service providers provides a good avenue to directly link farmers with services but also ensure that inputs and services are paid for. Where possible an input and services fund can be created to ensure that inputs and services are paid for when they are provided. The fund would then be replenished when farmers sell produce and pay for inputs and services.

d)      Farmer do not always have the required capital at planting time. As such they need credit to buy seeds, fertilizers and also pay for tilling services. At harvest time they need money to pay for laborers to harvest produce Traders who mostly buy produce on cash basis need significant amounts of money. Agro dealers need money to stock their shops and mechanization service providers need money for fuel and maintenance. Hence access to credit is a component of the model.

As a non profit organization, our role is to continue to articulate issues of the underserved and marginalized in Kenya and raise resources through proposals to improve their lives to be able to finally be heard in this very difficult environment where the minority have no voice to be heard and are highly marginalized.