Case Study;
SUSTAINABLE FORESTRY FOR FOOD SECURITY AND NUTRITION _ Case Study
USTADI Foundation - a Local Capacity Development Facility in Kenya – Finding the Balance in
Conserving Mangrove forests along the Coast, Livelihoods and Social Systems Support in Kwale
County.
USTADI Foundation Kenyan not-for profit organization that seeks to bring a ‘coalition of change’
comprising partners from the private sector, civil society, government and different interest groups to
focus on changing the rules around local capacity development market, alongside facilitating
deliverables in sectors and themes that are important to local actors in priority sectors including;
agriculture, water, renewable energy and environment.
USTADI received funding in December 2014 from Act Change Transform (Act!), another local NGO,
to implement marine fishing, sea-weed farming and bee-keeping projects in Kwale County as a means
for improving nutrition and supplementing incomes of rural entrepreneurs operating along the
coastal strip, largely building on previous work by other actors in including; Coastal Rural Support
Program, CRSP (funded by Aga Khan Foundation/Honey Care Africa), The Kenya Coastal Forest
Protected Area System Project (Global Environment Facility, GEF), Kenya Marine and Fisheries
Research Institute (KMFRI) and Act! (EU funding), among others. All the above actors sought to
establishing cost-effective means for sustainable exploitation of aquatic and (riparian) environmental
resources for economic and food security purposes by the local communities in Kwale County.
Kwale, one of Kenya’s 47 counties, is located in Southern Kenya, Based on the 2009 National Census
the county population density stood at 78.5 ppl/sq km [population 649,931; area 8,270.2 Km2] and
122, 047 households (Kenya Population & Housing Census, 2009), with, 74.9% of the population
living under the poverty datum line. This poverty created the problem of forest and coastal ecosystem
destruction for food, fuel, settlement and grazing of livestock. Main economic activities included;
fishing, mixed farming, apiculture, commercial businesses, mining, forestry and tourism – main
forest-based attractions being Tsavo national park, Shimba Hills National Reserve, Mwaluganje
Elephant Sanctuary, Sheldrick Falls, Maji moto springs and the mangrove beaches.
80% of Kwale County lies in arid and semiarid lands (ASAL; average temperature is 24.2°C and rainfall
amounts range between 400mm and 1,680mm per annum), which is suitable for livestock rearing.
The most important livestock species are; dairy cattle and goats, sheep, poultry and bees.
Kwale County is overlapped by the humid, higher rainfall coastal belt and the semi-arid interior,
presenting a stark contrast between the eastern and western climatic zones. The western semi-arid
interior covers a greater portion of the county. The eastern part of the district has high humidity
displaying a more varied mix of vegetation, including forest areas, indigenous and exotic vegetation
compared with the homogenous character of thorny Acacias, Commiphora, Euphobias and savanna
grasses of the western zone.
The project target area (along the coast-line in Msambweni) has received much attention of actors
working with local communities to achieve more balanced outcomes in ecological, social and
economic activities, among them bee-keeping.
The ecosystem and livelihoods project began with an assessment of current status of marine fishing,
sea-weed and bee-keeping business in Kwale (inventory of activities, capacity gaps at production,
processing and market levels, gender, youth, environment/marine ecosystem conservation) and
recommended structures that could inform scale-up, commercialization of the enterprises while
maintaining the coastal forest lands and marine ecosystems using the value chain approach. Baseline
information was obtained from local farmers, key actors including; commercial enterprises, relevant
county government agencies, financial institutions, Kenya Forest Services, Kenya Marine Fisheries
Research Institute and research agencies (International Center for Insect Physiology and Ecology,
ICIPE).
In 2003/4, Honey Care Africa (HCA) was involved in a community-based conservation (CBC)
program that sought to generate income and conserve biodiversity in a manner that included
participation of local communities and resource users. For nearly a decade now, Kenya Marine and
Fisheries Research Institute (KMFRI) has implemented socio-economic programs that focus on
establishing cost-effective methods for sustainable exploitation of the aquatic resources (and the
environment) while deriving social and economic benefits through participatory approaches with
stakeholders including local communities. Under this program, indigenous uses of the flora and
fauna, and the critical aquatic habitats have been documented. Since bees play an important role in in
pollinating crops as well as their need for well conserved riparian vegetation, it became necessary to
recognize the importance of establishing partnerships between communities and other like-minded
institutions (i.e. governments, NGOs, etc.) in conservation and development projects.
Apiculture was not among the top 3 prioritized value-chains for Kwale Agriculture Sector
Development Support Program (ASDSP-2010) but was nevertheless promoted in the rural areas as
one of the industries that improve off farm incomes and conserve the environment, supplementing
local fishermen incomes and therefore reducing overfishing and destruction of marine ecosystems. It
was an activity that could be done by both genders; young or old improve the economic situation of
hundreds of households in those riparian communities. Specifically, USTADI started out on current
production level of 180 tons of honey/year and targets to raise that to 403 tons within the next one
year as contribution to the rural economy from honey and bee-products alone.
The project is under implementation until 2016 and some of the key objectives will be to;
a) Identify a local host organization that will organization will appreciate the ecological context
within which these projects are located and will foster relationships with custodial government
and private agencies mandated to protect marine ecosystems (KMFRI, KFS, WWF, Carbon
Experts etc) to ensure that ecological, social and economic goals achieved with balance. This
will reduce the perceived strain on natural resources (mangroves, over-fishing, and forests) as
they seek to improve livelihoods.
b) Scaling up carbon programs which are already being implemented in Kwale. KMFRI confirmed
that in 2014, one government of Kenya sponsored Project (Gazi Mangrove re-forestation
Program) pursued their economic objectives of running local enterprises and redeeming
carbon credits while protecting the marine ecosystem largely through mangrove reforestation.
c) Seek to strengthen horizontal institutional linkages among forestry, ecological, research and
commercial actors.
Seeking to achieve good-will and key partnerships of all stakeholders at the local food and
nutrition project implementation level, leveraging programs that seek to bring a balance in the
stated areas, leveraging ecological, social and economic programs at the local level, scaling up
incomes through low-carbon path programs are all approaches that have been pursued by
USTADI Foundation with the aim of achieving sustainable and balanced coastal (mangrove)
forestry for increased incomes, improved livelihoods, food security and nutrition by 2016.