Tucked away some kilometers from Naivasha town is the small cold town of Eburu, a thriving beautiful community that’s fully focused on saving their almost extinct Mountain Bongo. Listed as Critically Endangered, the Mountain Bongo’s entire wild population is thought to be fewer than 120 animals and is restricted to just a few upland forests including the Mau Eburu Reserve.
So how are they doing this? For this we have to go back to the beginning.
A few years ago according to our guide Daniel Maina who’s lived in Eburu for over 50 years, the community, forest cover was almost non-existent in that area due to the intensifying human population pressure encroaching on that forest belt stretch with uncontrolled logging, slash and burn cultivation and settlement on that fertile land ruling the day.
What followed was continued forest loss cover leading to potentially calamitous socio-economic consequences which were hardest felt by the same people who cut the trees down. Their farms went drier than usual, water that flowed freely disappeared and their wallets felt quite the pinch when their harvests didn’t bring as much return as they used to.
This has however changed:
After realizing the fact that the survival of Eburu Forest Reserve is directly linked to the survival of the community, Daniel says that their people all read, breathe and practice conservation along with alternative sources of economic livelihood which include:
Steam Jets
The Mau Eburu Forest covers the slopes of Mount Eburu – a geologically active volcanic massif towering above the floor of the Great Rift Valley.
Taking its name from Ol Doinyo Opuru, [Eastern] Eburu is still active today, having numerous hot springs and steam Jets that spit out steam from the earth and the locals have long made use of improvised condensers to ‘trap’ water from the Jets for drinking and domestic use.
Further down, the same geothermal resource is being developed by KenGen as a source of additional energy for the national power grid. With this, parts of Eburu are being transformed in having to accommodate the infrastructure of the generating plant, pipework, service roads etc
Bee keeping
The art of bee keeping maybe lost to some, but to the people of Eburu, more so, the Ogiek people who live in scattered groups around the mountain, bee keeping is not only a source of income but way of protecting the forest.
According to Maseto Kusen, one of the Ogieks in that area, once a beehive is erected on a certain tree, that tree cannot be cut down according to their culture. This also cultivates the tradition of planting trees for their children to also continue with the practice.
Establishing tree nurseries
A few metres down from Maseto’s home is an example of one of the thriving tree nurseries in the area.
Sustainable land-use practices based on activities like tree planting and home forestry have been largely adopted in the area around the Mau Eburu Reserve. What comes from this is more and more fsrmers growing fuel-wood which is managed in their own homesteads from the fast growing exotic trees. This alleviates pressure from the forest while also reducing the time, effort and energy used in gathering firewood from other sources.
Alternative fuel sources: Alternative energy-efficient fuel sources for cooking and domestic heating are also in the works according to Christian Lambrechts, Executive Director of the Rhino Ark Kenya Charitable Trust. Apart from the already established steam jets which provide the locals with heated water from the earth and the electricity generated from KenGen, they are looking into more energy-efficient fuel sources like charcoal briquettes.
To this end, indigenous trees continue to be re-planted and cared for with the ongoing participatory forest-management programmes involving the locals including the school children who are taught about the importance of protecting forests including their very own Mau Eburu from a young age.
It is with this that the M-PESA Foundation in conjunction with Rhino Ark Kenya Charitable Trust, Kenya Forest Service and Kenya Wildlife Service want to set an example on the importance and relevance of multi-faceted conservation strategies like this one to our country’s water towers in an effort to safeguard our vital water resources.
