Community conservancy groups in Faza, Lamu are working to restore 10,000 hectares of mangrove forest cover by the end of the year.
The initiative will restore the county’s mangrove forest which holds the bulk of the country’s vegetation cover.
The trees are important to Lamu since they hold good fishing grounds for crabs and fish and provide timber for building and exports, especially in Pate and Faza.
The Kenya Forestry Services is leading the restoration initiative and is partnering with, Kenya Marine and Fisheries Institute, The Nature Conservancy and Northern Rangeland Trust.
The Nature Conservancy Project strategy leader George Maina said the partnership will boost the chances of success in the initiative.
“We are aware that there have been ongoing conservation efforts in the past which have been largely unsuccessful because of the communities may not have known which mangroves to plant and where to plant them,” he said.
There are seven species of mangroves which community conservancy groups are being trained to plant to ensure that there are minimal losses.
Research has shown that mangroves are notoriously difficult to grow in their habitat due to the likelihood of being swept by high tides as well as not coping well in a non-indigenous environment.
“We noted that for every 1,000 mangroves planted, more than seventy per cent die because the various species thrive differently in different waters,” Maina said.
KFS officer James Omwenga said it was important to ensure that the mangroves that are grown thrive.
He said the restoration protocol prepared for the Western Indian Ocean region by regional experts will be used to provide step-by-step guidelines to successfully plan and implement the entire restoration program.
“Our objective is to have done at least 50 hectares of mangroves to replace the ones that have been degraded across Lamu,” he said.
The KFS official said that at least 22 mangrove cutting licenses have been issued since the national government lifted the ban on mangrove cutting, and said that conservancy of mangroves can only thrive under multi-agency efforts.
“It is key for the communities to be aligned with conservation issues because they are the ones who directly benefit from the blue economy opportunities provided by mangroves and they will also suffer if the process is not done right,” Omwenga said.
