Thursday, March 28, 2024

Kenyan Farmers Mix Tradition With Tech To Protect Drying Mara River

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By Kagondu Njagi

Anyone hearing the loud singing coming from Isaac Chereger’s farm would be forgiven for thinking it was a particularly enthusiastic church gathering.

Instead, it was a group of women calling to order a meeting of a local religious charity that teaches villagers how to conserve the forest around their homes in this southwestern Kenya community, to help stop the Mara River from drying.

For more than a decade, environmental groups have raised the alarm over the Mara River, warning that population growth, illegal logging and overuse of its waters by communities struggling through drought have caused a dramatic drop in the river’s water levels.

At the meeting on Chereger’s farm, some villagers volunteered to plant saplings where their fields meet the river, while others agreed to get training on why the unplanned felling of trees along the river could worsen the impact of drought.

Chereger told the Thomson Reuters Foundation he is proud of the conservation work his community does, but has long wondered if it was enough.

That’s why the Empowering Lives International Centre – which put on the meeting on his farm – has joined other local organizations in an effort to give their traditional conservation work some technological muscle.

The pilot scheme run by the Stockholm Environment Institute, an international research organization, trains villagers to use a water evaluation and planning (WEAP) tool that generates a digital forecast on the health of a water source.

When communities know what to expect from the Mara River’s changing water levels, they can more quickly adapt and find the most effective ways to slow the drying of the river, the institute’s researchers say.

The group in Ilula village say they are keen to add the system to their conservation toolbelt.

“The Mara River gives us pasture and water for our cattle. If this innovation can help in preventing bad use of the river, then we are ready to work with it,” said Chereger…Read more>>

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