The Kakamega Forest Heritage Foundation (KFHF) supports the National Forest & Land Restoration Program that is aimed at restoring 5.1M ha in Kenya. The program launched by the Cabinet Secretary for Environment Prof. Judi Wakhungu with other stakeholders is aligned to some of our activities.
Prof. Judi Wakhungu EGH
@JudiWakhungu
Launching “National Forest & Land Restoration Program” to restore 5.1M ha in Kenya @Environment_Ke @KeForestService
436:30 PM – Sep 8, 2016Twitter Ads info and privacy33 people are talking about this
The Kakamega Forest Marathon (Ingo Marathon) that is held every last Saturday in the month of November is aimed at increasing the forest’s cover to reduce environmental degradation that is negatively affecting the forest’s ecosystem.
At the launch, the Cabinet Secretary reiterated the government’s commitment to restoring the forest cover to 5.1M ha to as contribution to Bonn Challenge and AFR100. The Bonn Challenge is a global effort to restore 150 million hectares of the world’s deforested and degraded land by 2020 and 350 million hectares by 2030. AFR100 (the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative) is a country-led effort to bring 100 million hectares of land in Africa into restoration by 2030.
The efforts go a long way in supporting a previous stakeholders decision on a new plan of specific measures to be undertaken across sectors to increase Kenya’s forest cover to 10 per cent in the next 15 years. The National Forest Programme (NFP) covering the period 2016-2030, to guide the country’s management of trees underpins these efforts.
“As the Kakamega Forest Heritage Foundation, the Kakamega Forest Marathon is alive to these efforts being undertaken. We reiterate that increasing the forest cover is a collective effort which we commit to supporting through our activities within the Kakamega Forest ecosystem,” said the Foundation CEO Mr. George Murila.
The proceeds of the Kakamega Forest Marathon go towards a Conservation Fund and an Empowerment Fund which have specific activities to support the restoration of the forest. For instance, under the conservation fund, forest agriculture and forest scouts’ initiatives are some of the specific programs.
The empowerment program has community empowerment as one of the specific activities whereby Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are empowered through training, business incubation, development financing and skills transfer projects.
The CEO invited partners to support the marathon scheduled for 26th November 2016 and also Kenyans at large to participate in the marathon.