Bamboo farming takes pressure off Kenya's forests

Evicted from Kenya's protected forests, displaced people are finding a new way to make a living – without cutting trees – by turning to bamboo farming.

|
Kagondu Njagi/AlertNet
People removed from Kenya's protected forests show off furniture they have made using bamboo, as part of a project to protect forests and improve the lives of displaced families.

It is a chilly morning in Olenguruone village on the southern flank of the Rift Valley, but Gloria Chepng’etich is warming up to the task at hand.

Spread neatly on her workbench are bamboo splices that the 21-year-old will weave into floor mats over the next hour or so.

She will then pass the handicraft to her colleague, Zipporah Sirui, who will finish it with touches of dye, blending it into a colorful mix of orange, red, and gray.

A single mat fetches around $50, enough for each of them to buy cooking flour and save some money for a rainy day.

IN PICTURES: Sustaining the Environment

Beyond their work, Chepng’etich and Sirui have something else in common – both are internally displaced persons (IDPs). They were among the thousands of families evicted by the Kenyan government from the Mau forest complex in 2009, following pressure by environmentalists to rehabilitate the area.

The complex, which comprises 16 blocks of forest on the western side of the Rift Valley, is the largest indigenous forest in East Africa, generating and capturing rainfall that is a crucial resource for Kenya and beyond and a significant factor in mitigating the regional effects of climate change.

The eviction of forest residents won the government national and international praise, with officials arguing that it would reduce illegal harvesting of forest resources and create space for reforestation in the complex. But the social and economic costs were high.

“We were sent to the Kurbanyat IDP camp,” says Chepng’etich. “For a long time we relied on relief food, but the officials started stealing it.”

Destitute and desperate is how officials with the BamCraft Project found the two, and hundreds of other IDPs. The project is a partnership of Kenya Forestry Research Institute (KEFRI), the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, and the government of Japan.

Now the IDPs are finding a new way to make a living – without cutting trees – by turning to bamboo farming.

At the nearby Kapkempu IDP camp, Hudson Sang’ has been piecing together refined bamboo planks, which he will craft into furniture, selling a set for about $100.  

“We have about an acre of land under bamboo,” says Sang’. “After harvesting [the bamboo] we make tables, chairs, floor mats, baskets, brooms, necklaces, sugar dishes, smoking pipes, and even wine cups.”

The land has been loaned to Sang’ and other IDPs by well-wishers while they await permanent resettlement by the government. As a result of the bamboo project, he no longer has to worry about the forest guards who enforce a ban that since 2000 has restricted the harvesting of forest resources from all government forests.

The legislation requires Kenyans to seek permission from local authorities before cutting down any tree from their farms, but it does not apply to bamboo since the plant is classified as a giant grass, officials say.

The legislation prompted the Kenya Forestry Research Institute to investigate opportunities offered by nontimber products and their potential to reduce pressure on forests, says Gordon Sigu, a research scientist working with the institution. 

“Our research has shown that the grass … can supplement the rising demand for timber both at home and abroad,” Sigu said.

He said bamboo grows very quickly and a farmer does not need a big area of land to cultivate it.

Farmers in central Kenya are pleased with bamboo’s commercial value, and a growing number of them are adopting bamboo farming to supply industrial fiber, as well as planks for the construction sector.

“Before I came to know about its value I used bamboo for fencing,” says Moses Kamiri, a farmer in central Kenya. “But the last harvest fetched me enough money to feed my family and pay school fees.”

Kamiri now turns his bamboo harvest into finished products through a process set up by KEFRI for entrepreneurs.

The institute estimates that Kenya is home to 14 species of bamboo growing on some 150,000 hectares [370,000 acres] of land – more than a fifth of which lies within the Mau complex – but it says that a lot goes to waste because few people understand its commercial value.

According to KEFRI’s Rift Valley regional director, Joshua Cheboiywo, the country has the capacity to generate almost 25 million stems of bamboo per year without taking too much of the country’s water supply.

A 2010 government survey indicates that Kenya has a forest cover of 5.9 percent. The government hopes that the use of bamboo as an alternative timber resource, together with enforcement of the ban on logging in the Mau complex, will help the country make headway towards the target envisioned in the country’s constitution of 10 percent forest cover within the next 30 years.

• Kagondu Njagi is an environmental writer based in Nairobi. This article originally appeared at Alertnet, a humanitarian news site operated by the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

• Sign up to receive a weekly selection of practical and inspiring Change Agent articles by clicking here.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Bamboo farming takes pressure off Kenya's forests
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Making-a-difference/Change-Agent/2012/0803/Bamboo-farming-takes-pressure-off-Kenya-s-forests
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe