Kenya has five water towers which feed the rivers from which it generates its hydro-power. The water towers – Aberdare Forest, Mt Kenya, Mau Forest Complex, Cherengani Hills and Mt Elgon – are however under immense pressure from a growing population. People have encroached on these catchments clearing trees to farm thus and opening up the land to erosion.

River banks have not been spared either being encroached upon even faster as they are more accessible to farmers. Rivers are heavily silted and their water levels declining due to lack of recharge waters from destroyed catchments.

Kenya’s Ministry of Environment charged Africa harvest with the responsibility of developing and testing a model for rapidly mobilizing communities to rehabilitate and conserve degraded rivers in order to restore normal water flows for power generation.

River Rutui, a tributary of River Thiba with its source in Mt Kenya, was selected as a pilot site for the project. The river drains into River Tana on which five of the country’s major power generation stations are located.

River Rutui was the classical case of degradation of river ecosystems. All vegetation had been cleared and communities were growing crops right up to the river bank, despite a requirement that stipulates that 30 metres of land on either side of a river must be conserved.

The river is heavily silted and the water polluted resulting in an increase of water-borne diseases like typhoid. Its water level has also been falling causing domestic water shortages.

Working with numerous partners including the Kenya Forest Service, the Ministry of Agriculture, community youth and women groups, and water user associations, Africa Harvest developed a participatory project for rehabilitating and conserving the Rutui river catchment.

Key activities included mobilizing and sensitizing communities along the river to get buy-in for the planned rehabilitation. Having already endured the consequences of river degradation, farmers cultivating along the river readily gave up their activities and enrolled in the conservation efforts.

Africa Harvest also facilitated identification, selection and production of indigenous tree seedlings by community groups, and their subsequent planting along the riverline. Water guzzling eucalyptus trees that had been planted along the river were also uprooted and replaced by more sustainable indigenous trees. Communities further cleaned-up the river of debris and other wastes.

Project Outcomes

In the 18-month life of the project, Africa Harvest and its partners were able to:-

• Produce more than two million tree seedlings of indigenous trees for planting
• Provide community groups rearing tree seedlings with a new source of income
• Mobilise the community to plant and care for 500,000 trees in the river catchment
• Curb soil erosion and river siltation, with a noticeable increase in the river volume
• Build seven micro-dams to supply the villages with electricity
• Facilitate development of 55 registered water intake points for farmer groups, coffee factories, institutions and about 1,300 households in the area
• Replicate the project with similar results on River Iraru in Meru

Africa Harvest demonstrated that rural poor can be drivers of sustainable development laying foundation and developing a model for community-led natural resource management for replication in other similarly degraded soil and water catchments.