KISII, Kenya, Jun 6-Land is a resource for agricultural activities. Unfettered increase in land use causes soil erosion and loss of biodiversity.
Erosion is widely recognized as one of the main threats to the soil. A challenge to the sustainability of agriculture in tropical regions is soil erosion.
In addition, a critical global land degradation phenomenon affecting human beings is soil erosion
Soil erosion results in the depletion of below-ground biodiversity, which includes soil microorganisms.
Worldwide, the soil is being degraded at a rapid rate. Globally, through soil erosion, about 2.8 tons of soil are lost per hectare annually.
According to the Centre for Science and Environment, about 25-30% of total cultivated and in Kenya is affected by soil erosion.
Scientists at the Fifteenth Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (COP15), in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire pushed for changes that will help improve the soil and ecosystem.
“We cannot continue business-as-usual,” said Leigh Winowiecki, who leads soil and land Health Research at the Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF), addressing delegates at the U.N COP15 summit on land desertification and drought in Abidjan.
Land restoration by agroforestry can help slow global warming, stem biodiversity loss and reduce the risk of scale and frequency disasters such as floods and zoonotic disease.
In Western parts of Kenya, rainforest vegetation has been largely degraded due to human activities including agriculture and agriculturally induced soil erosion.
According to the Kenya Forestry assessment report in 2021 indicates that over the national landmass area of 59,196,877.24 Ha, Kenya has 7,180,000.66 Ha of tree cover, which translates to 12.13 percent.
While Central, Western, and Coast regions of the country have more tree cover than other regions of the country.
The contribution of individual counties’ tree cover to the national tree cover, results indicate that the highest contribution to national tree cover is Turkana at 10.69 percent.
In contrast, the lowest contribution is Mombasa at 0.07 percent, 37 counties had a tree cover above the 10% threshold, whereas ten counties were below the threshold.
Ten Counties whose tree cover is below 10 percent constitute 21,863,995.42 Ha of the land area of Kenya against 37,322,881.82 Ha for the 37 counties above 10 percent.
Turkana, Kitui, Garissa, Samburu, and Tana River counties have the highest contribution to the net national tree cover with this hindsight.
In contrast, Vihiga, Siaya, Busia, Nairobi and.Mombasa are the least contributors to the net tree cover primarily driven by anthropogenic factors that manifest through growing human needs, such as converting lands with tree resources to settlements, crop farming, and lack of geospatial plans to guide infrastructural development.
Natural forest type has the highest proportion of forests with 84 %, plantation with11%, Bamboo with 4% whereas mangroves have the most negligible proportion of forest type with 1% as illustrated in the figure below.
“World environmental day is a day used as a platform to address environmental issues and Lobby for policy formulations, environmental responsive budgets, call off environmental destructive practices, discuss carbon emissions, call for increase in forest cover and generally address climate change issues, “Said Edinah Kangwana who is a Human and Land Rights Activist.
She applauds the efforts put in Kisii county by the two levels of government, residents, stakeholders and the development partners to contribute to our national target of increasing the forest cover by 10%. Kisii county is currently at 15.6% surpassing the national target by 5.6%.
However, the challenge lies in the tree species planted in Kisii such as the eucalyptus trees planted along the rivers making the rivers to dry up.
“Our call to the residents is to take a collective responsibility to cut off all the eucalyptus trees in riparian land and replace them with indigenous trees that are environment friendly, “She noted.
Committee advisor at Lake Victoria Basin catchment area advisor Richard Onsongo says there is a need to the planting of more trees to improve catchment cover.
“We advise our people to plant trees at the right places especially the eucalyptus trees should be removed from river banks to maintain water tables,” says Onsongo.
Government should develop policies and provide education to Kenyans on the types of trees to plant and also provide indigenous trees which are environmentally friendly.
Professor Ratemo Michieka said Kenyans have come to the realization of forest cover but the economical stains are acting as a barrier to fulfilling the 10 percent forest cover.
“Many people are planting trees but failure to take care of these trees will make us not achieve the forest cover we want,” he noted.
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