The African golden cat’s habitat is disappearing. When the farmers are waiting for their fields of potatoes to mature, they spend much of their time in the forest, gathering bush meat, collecting honey and felling indigenous trees. In many areas, the electric fence is turned off for long periods of time to accommodate livestock and local communities.
Forestry has always been controversial in Kenya. With a growing population, good agricultural soils and good rainfall are much sought after.
Bamboo Trading Company has demonstrated that the nation’s indigenous bamboo, Arundinaria alpina, can be managed sustainably. Harvesting bamboo only takes three or four days in a given year. This ensures a small human footprint in the forest. No agrochemicals or fertilisers are required.
The former CEO of Rhino Ark, Colin Church, visited Kieni, Kamae and Kimakia forest stations, and was shocked by the land invasions. In early 2018, he wrote a letter to Rhino Ark’s board with photographs attached.
The preservation of Kenya’s forests provides for communities far from the forest edge, often in Nairobi, Naivasha or Thika. Many Community Forestry Associations lack capability and leadership or have been hijacked by political ambition and personal economic interest. If Kenya’s water catchments are to be preserved, the legions of people who have now erected houses inside the Aberdare and Mau forests, often under the PELIS system, must be relocated to official forest stations.
As the nation’s population grows, it needs sustainable wood biomass. Kenya’s indigenous bamboo produces more biomass per hectare per year than any other plant in the country.
In some areas, it produces over 90 tonnes of biomass per hectare at 25 per cent moisture for harvest each year. This equates to double the productivity of the fastest-growing eucalyptus in Kericho.
Indigenous bamboo, Arundinaria alpina, has a proven calorific value. It can be used in boilers and furnaces throughout the country. It can also be used to produce fence posts and transmission poles. It can be used to produce a variety of value-added products for housing and furniture. It is the most useful timber-related product in the world. But it is being cleared and replaced with subsistence agriculture. The Mara river has dried up for two years in a row because there is no longer sufficient bamboo forest on the Mau water catchment.
Rhino Ark has often talked of growing indigenous forest and of promoting good forest management. It is now time to act, not by investing in fences but by investing in indigenous forestry and seriously protecting the area inside the fence. Only then will the African golden cat and its friends stand some chance of survival.
The production of sustainable wood fuel is this country’s most pressing environmental issue. Indigenous bamboo is more valuable than oil and gas because it provides cheap energy, wildlife habitat, water catchment — and rural employment in five areas of the country.
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