The Maragoli Hills in Vihaga, western Kenya comprise 400 hectares of beautiful green forest that provide important resources to a nearby population of 2.7 million people. The region, however, has experienced vast deforestation and degradation since colonization began over a century ago, triggering years of commercial logging in local forests. This has not only impacted the health and livelihoods of local communities, but contributed to global biodiversity loss and increases in atmospheric carbon levels, as these forests are part of more than 3 trillion trees that humans have cut down globally since the start of civilization, reducing the global population of trees by nearly 50%.
Understanding the role humans can play in taking care of the Maragoli Hills forests, as they once did before colonization, Global Greengrants Fund grantee partner, Catholic Diocese of Kakamega, started forest rehabilitation efforts in 2019. Global Greengrants provided funding to the organisation in 2020 to help establish a tree nursery using Indigenous seeds, which successfully laid the foundations for further forest rehabilitation in the region. Their first nursery became a springboard for further nurseries, which they built in close collaboration with community spaces like schools, where they educated people not only on how to care for the trees, but on the importance of reforesting the region. This had long-term impacts for nearby communities, building their resilience and their connection to the land and trees. It also contributed to global efforts to regenerate forests—because forests capture significant amounts of carbon from the atmosphere, they are vital to climate change mitigation efforts. Forest regeneration slows the climate crisis by keeping global temperatures down—and when it is done using indigenous trees, with Indigenous communities entrusted to oversee the rehabilitation, the regenerated forests also protect biodiversity, rebalance ecosystems, and restore connections between local communities and the lands they inhabit. Efforts like these are instrumental for Global Greengrants and environmental justice funders to support around the world. When they happen simultaneously, their compounded effects have global impacts on carbon levels, on the health of ecosystems, and on the power communities have to steward their lands free from the influence of extractive industries.
We spoke with a program officer at Catholic Diocese of Kakamega to learn more about the rehabilitation project, its impact on the landscape and local communities, and the lessons they learned along the way. Here’s what he had to say.
What motivated your community to start the Maragoli Hills rehabilitation project?
The region we serve in Vihaga contains many green forested areas. However, in Maragoli Hills, the forests have degraded by 80% due to the area’s history of deforestation, which began in colonial times. Catholic Diocese of Kakamega realized that it was the role of humans to rehabilitate and take care of Maragoli Hills, given that it was humans who were responsible for its degradation. The rehabilitation would also improve water supply, food supply, and air quality, thereby improving the quality of life for communities in the area, and would generate powerful evidence that communities can turn things around when they work together.
What has been the organisation’s approach?
Our approach was to engage the community first, and to prioritize the community throughout the entire process. We gathered community members from multiple generations and encouraged the elders to share with the youth their memory of the landscape, the animals present, the ability to grow food. The youth were shocked to hear how much the landscape had changed. We then organised sessions in three different locations to identify how the environmental issues the forest degradation caused impacted the communities.
We decided to create a tree nursery, which would train and educate local communities on the value of the trees. To begin the project, we first focused on accessing indigenous fruit tree seedlings—this was a project Greengrants first supported us with in 2019, since acquiring and transporting seedlings is costly. We established our first nursery in 2020, prioritizing not just going to a school silently and planting, but educating the teachers and students about why we were starting the nursery and what the benefits are. So far, we have reached about 100 educational institutions out of 420 that are part of our catholic diocese.
We also made sure to sustain partnerships with schools, religious organizations, and wider communities to train people on the establishment and management of nurseries. This ensured that the project would be self-sustaining.
How has the project transformed the Maragoli Hills landscape and the lives of the local community?
There have been positive impacts in schools which are becoming ‘greenhubs,’ where students say the air is now cooler and where they use the areas as peace gardens to relax and study. Communities around Maragoli Hills have also become more connected to the forest. We aim to extend these lessons to other nearby communities by engaging in radio talks to discuss environmental issues.
What challenges did you face during the project’s implementation, and how did you overcome them?
Funding is a major challenge affecting our ability to roll out the projects. This will continue to be a challenge, as we will need funding to support our follow-up activities. Now that we have trained some communities on nursery rehabilitation, we would like to train them on how to generate income from the nurseries and improve the livelihoods of their individual selves and the community. We hope to support the group to visit other forest associations that are making nurseries and learn from them.
Greengrants has been our most consistent and significant funder throughout.
What lessons have you learned from this project that can be shared with other communities facing similar environmental challenges?
For communities: Do something, however small, even if it’s just planting one tree. Don’t wait for outside funding. Start in whatever small way you can.
For funders: To fund projects like these, there needs to be sustained and impactful community engagement to support communities to change their attitudes and understand the “why.” For example, a community raised on burning charcoal may not understand that it has a negative impact, so there must be continued and meaningful environmental education. You can’t just fund a one-off project and then disappear.
Overall: People can co-exist with the forest, and are able to meet their own needs without destroying it. And, listening is key to a project like this.
What are your future plans for the Maragoli Hills rehabilitation project, and how can others support your efforts?
We have many next steps planned. We would like to establish four more satellite nurseries in order to service the area well. We are also looking to engage schools further through art and design and essay-writing oriented around environmental conservation in order to activate kids’ imaginations about the environment. Lastly, we hope to explore alternative energy sources and domestic-grade bio gas as alternatives to domestic use of firewood.