Kenya

The Mountain Partnership—Two years later: Mountain coffee—an example of the Mountain Partnership working in Kenya

A project within the framework of the Sustainable Livelihoods initiative of the Mountain Partnership is helping to generate income and stabilise the livelihoods of Kenyan coffee farmers. Dean's Beans Organic Coffee Company, a member of the Mountain Partnership, will work to develop organic coffee production with small-scale farmers in the highlands of Kenya and provide a high-end market...

Linking smallholder farmers to markets in East Africa: Empowering mountain communities to identify market opportunities and develop rural agroenterprises
in farmers are often constrained by poor access to markets and limited entrepreneurial skills for adding value to produce. Research and development organizations have now recognized that improving market access and enhancing the ability of resource-poor mountain farmers to diversify their links with markets are among the most pressing challenges in mountain agriculture. What is not so...
Glacial fluctuation and vegetation succession on Tyndall Glacier, Mt Kenya
Dramatic changes are taking place in the glacier-covered high mountains of Africa. The glacial area on Mt Kilimanjaro is now only half as large as it was in the 1970s. The Tyndall Glacier on Mt Kenya, which retreated at approxi-retreated at approximately 3 m/yr from 1958 to 1997, retreated at about 10 m/yr from 1997 to 2002. Pioneer species such as Senecio keniophytum, Arabis alpina, mosses...
Assessing and managing scarce tropical mountain water resources: The case of Mount Kenya and the semiarid upper Ewaso Ng'iro Basin

Mountains play a crucial role in the supply of freshwater to humankind, in highland and lowland areas alike. Increasing demand urgently requires careful management of mountain water resources in order to mitigate growing water crises and conflicts. Monitored river flow was analyzed for three selected catchments (Timau, Burguret, and Likii) on the slopes of Mount Kenya from 1960 to 2004....

River water shortage in a highland–lowland system: A case study of the impacts of water abstraction in the Mount Kenya region

In the past decade, water shortage on the western and northern slopes of Mount Kenya and particularly in the adjoining lowland areas has reached a severity not experienced before. Rapid population growth and rising demand for irrigation are increasing the pressure on water resources, as can be demonstrated by an inventory of water abstractions from the Naro Moru River. A total of 98...

Impact of the 1997–1998 El Niño rains on farms in the Mount Kenya region
The impacts of the 1997–1998 El Niño rains in the Mount Kenya region were heterogeneously distributed among agricultural villages in the area. The magnitude of these impacts on crop production depended on differences in the climatic and topographic conditions of the affected villages. Major food crops, especially beans and Irish potatoes, were ruined by the long-lasting rains in...
Adapting to climate change in a dryland mountain environment in Kenya

Global warming is likely to lead to a variety of changes in local climatic conditions, including potential increases in the frequency and intensity of extreme climatic events such as drought, floods, and storms. Present capacity to respond to and manage climatic variability, including extreme events, is an important component of adjustments to climatic changes. In particular, identifying...

Introducing a transboundary ecosystem management approach in the Mount Elgon region: The need for strengthened institutional collaboration
The Mt Elgon ecosystem straddles the international boundary between Kenya and Uganda and is a watershed of international importance, feeding the waters of Lake Victoria, the Nile River system, and Lake Turkana. The core ecosystem in the Mt Elgon area is characterized by large montane forest landscapes; it comprises several protected areas. Adjacent is a vast, heavily populated agricultural...
Shaping globalisation: Scaling up voluntary social and ecological standards

Poverty, pollution and working conditions: the opportunities and challenges of today's economic globalisation are closely connected. Opportunities to improve living conditions, raise educational standards and establish better health care through participation in global supply chains are certainly there. Yet at the same time, while we are all competing globally, there is an equal risk of...

The economic value of east Africa’s forests

This is a brief introduction that will pave way to a series of subsequent Policy Briefs to be produced as outputs of the Economics Component (Project No. UNTS/RAF/008/GEF P. O. No: 93330) of the GEF/UNDP/FAO Project Reducing Biodiversity Loss at Selected Cross-Border Sites in East Africa. A series of policy briefs will be produced on an ongoing basis highlighting the progress, findings, and...

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