• The Kenya Forest Service and the Kenya Wildlife Service have embraced community involvement in the conservation of the indigenous forest which boosts of nearly 84 permanent water streams and four rivers.
• Access to clean energy in Kenya remains a challenge, and players in the sector must scale up efforts to deal with this problem to save natural ecosystems like Kakamega Forest.
Image: /FILE
Lack of alternative source of energy for mandazi, fish and chips business by locals around Kakamega Forest is threatening the lifeline of Kenya's only tropical rain forest through firewood harvesting.
The unique forest is home to nearly 510 butterfly species, 360 bird bird species (25 of which are only found in the forest), 33 snake species, 240 bee species and seven types of primates.
The Kenya Forest Service and the Kenya Wildlife Service have embraced community involvement in the conservation of the indigenous forest which boosts of nearly 84 permanent water streams and four rivers.
Its natural flora and fauna also provides a perfect getaway for those seeking a peaceful and quite natural environment. But the decision to allow locals to fetch firewood from the forest is now posing a danger to its continued existence, the more reason measures to introduce alternative sources of energy is urgent.
The fact that locals are only charged Sh116 per month to get firewood from the forest has turned firewood harvesting into a lucrative business venture that even those with nothing to cook or boil visit the forest several times per day to fetch firewood for sale in urban areas like Kakamega and Khayega towns and other shopping centers in the county.
The energetic boda bodas are the main link in the business that threatens the forest even as the country intensifies efforts on climate mitigation and adaptation.
While the government banned logging of trees for commercial use to save the country’s forest cover, demand for firewood for domestic and commercial use by small scale traders is a big challenge to the authorities in Kakamega county.
Access to clean energy in Kenya remains a challenge, and players in the sector must scale up efforts to deal with this problem to save natural ecosystems like Kakamega Forest.
The Kenyan government recognizes the negative impact of the cooking methods such as the three-stone open fire and other traditional stoves and acknowledges that accelerated access and uptake of clean cooking solutions is urgently needed in the country.
Other than the need to protect forests, the use of wood as a source of fire causes health complications with nearly 21,000 Kenyans dying annually from household air pollution related to using traditional cooking methods including the open three stones that uses wood fuel.
The government has made it clear in several policy statements including the Big Four agenda and Vision 2030 that it is committed to ensuring access to clean energy a key priority. Kenya’s Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL) Action agenda envisions that universal access to modern cooking solutions for all Kenyans is achieved by 2030.
The Ministry of Energy in collaboration with the Clean Cooking Association of Kenya have listed several advantages that come with the use of clean cooking technologies including the realisation that using clean cooking solutions will support the move by the government to restore Kenya’s forest cover to 10 per cent up from the current 7 per cent.
Decline in forest cover affects energy availability in rural areas negatively impacting on households particularly women and children who often collect wood fuel. Use of clean cooking technologies will reduce the country’s annual disease burden attributable to Household Air Pollution from 49 per cent (21,560) to 20 per cent.
Improved cooking technologies also reduce the amount of time women and girls spend collecting fuel, giving them the opportunity to pursue education, training and economic activities in addition to the fact that high efficiency cooking stoves lead to even larger benefits in time and energy saving, hence also contributing to reduction of emissions.
Further, affordable, efficient, improved and renewable energy technology not only increases energy security and reduces greenhouse gas emissions but can also provide new economic and educational opportunities for women, men and children.
Kenya has committed to reducing its carbon dioxide emission by 30 per cent by 2030, thus reducing the use of diesel and petrol machines and ease pressure on forests by reducing the use of charcoal through the solar system as a major intervention not only to alleviate the problems faced by women and children in communities but playing a big role in mitigating the adverse effects on climate change in Kenya.
Solar power is cost-effective and offers governments an opportunity to drastically reduce carbon emissions and offer households the prospect of cleaner air.
A few organizations have supplemented government efforts to reduce demand for wood fuel from the forest including ECO2LIBRIUM (ECO2) that has been tackling this challenge on a smaller scale in Kenya through working with women groups to expand provision and use of solar energy devices.
"We need to conserve natural resources and one of the reasons those resources are lost in poor societies is because of poverty and a lack of opportunity,” Anton Espira, chief of operations and field director for ECO2 said.
The company reports that the use of solar powered systems has reduced the destruction of forests by easing demand for wood fuel that the community around Kakamega forest was heavily relying on.