This archive report was first published on 26 April 2020.
On April 26, 2020, the Kenya Forest Service (KFS) achieved a major milestone in the implementation of the 2018 Taskforce on Forest Resources Management and Logging Activities in Kenya report with the restoration of the Karuri site in upper Ngusishi, Ontulili forest station.
The previously degraded 500-hectare site has been rehabilitated through the support of Mt. Kenya Trust and the Ontulili Community Forest Association.
5,000 indigenous seedlings were planted to mark the completion of the restoration initiative, led by KFS Chairman Mr. Peter Kinyua, Mt. Kenya Trust CEO Susie Weeks, and the CFA leadership.
The Taskforce report had flagged the Karuri site for abuse of the Plantation Establishment and Livelihood Improvement Scheme (PELIS) initiative, which aims to promote food security for forest adjacent communities while establishing forest plantations.
PELIS is a non-residential and subsistence cultivation in forests that promotes food security for forest adjacent communities while establishing forest plantations.
However, the report noted that huge tracts of forestland in Ontulili Forest had been turned into large-scale commercial farms in total abuse of the PELIS system.
Mr. Kinyua thanked the Mt. Kenya Trust team for adopting the area and following through the commitment to rehabilitate the same, and also thanked the CFA members for their active involvement in the rehabilitation process.
He noted that better conserved forests had the greatest benefits to adjacent communities and called upon all Kenyans in areas experiencing rainfall to plant trees in available spaces while strictly observing COVID-19 prevention regulations and guidelines.
