Kenya Disaster Concern/Vired/Nyando UNDP Wetlands Project Bee-keeping There are 15 members in the bee-keeping group. Their activities are underway on a 26x37m piece of land leased on a 5-year agreement. The fenced site has 25 beehives installed, most of them already have bees. Group members meet Kenya Resource Utilization in the Wetlands of Nyando Project Some of the KTBH hives set and managed by the community Bee Keeping Group weekly to assess progress on the site. All the members have attended basic training in beekeeping at the GoK’s Ahero Multi-purpose Training Centre. Harvesting has been several times and inspections and maintenances done regularly. Training Through PRA’s community socio-economic and training needs were identified and prioritized and implemented as per the Community Action Plan. Participants were identified through a participatory mobilization process and trainings conducted in each of the following areas: Improved livestock production (Poultry & dairy goat keeping) Bee keeping production of high quality wetland products horticultural production through organic farming Wetland Wise Use and Rehabilitation Fish farming Agro-forestry activities Financial Management (formation of village banks and marketing federation. These training was done in the pilot sites as alternative livelihood sources to the community with the main objective of providing income and at the same time relieving pressure on stressed wetland resources. National Project Head: Mr. Paul Wa’Munga Project Manager: Dr. Phillip Raburu P.O. Box 72812-00200, NAIROBI Email: kenyadisasterconcern@yahoo.com.sg or Foulata Kwena, UNDP - Kenya P. O. Box 30218—00100 Nairobi Tel: 762 5223 / 0722 795773 Email: foulata.kwena@undp.org N Location and Background: yando Wetlands is located in the lower Nyando River Basin, almost at the shores of the Lake Victoria. The wetlands traverse three administrative districts of Kisumu East, Nyando and Nyakach. The wetland is rich in biodiversity and performs key ecological and hydrological functions including being an excellent buffer to pollutants from the many agro-industrial activities upstream. Despite its significance, the River Nyando basin has been degraded over the years through the following activities: overgrazing, over-harvesting of wetland plants, over-fishing, reclamation for agriculture, and the impact of extreme climatic changes like drought and perennial floods rampant in the area. Conservation of the wetland has been constrained as these activities are closely linked with community livelihoods and without alternatives particularly during droughts, very few options are available for sustainably managing the wetland resources. The main objective of the project is threefold; (1) to mobilize the local and school communities, (2) to create awareness, (3) to build the capacity and implement activities that promote sustainable utilization and management of the wetland resources in a bid to conserve the wetlands. This will alleviate poverty and improve living standards of the community. Infrastructure The infrastructure in the project area is very poor. In an effort to provide a central place for community wetland activities, site offices were constructed at the pilot sites. Land for project activities were provided or leased out by the community members. The access roads to these sites which was a problem was improved using community labour as shown below and as at now all the pilot sites are accessible . Programmes and Activities: Kenya Disaster Concern/Vired/Nyando UNDP Wetlands Project T hrough PRA, the community has been able to identify problems, causes and possible intervention measures to curb degradation and other underlying problems in the wetland. Horticulture Horticultural production through organic farming was chosen by the community as one of the alternative livelihood activities. The activity is popular as it addresses issues of food insecurity, income generation, wetland conservation and reduction of pollution into the lake. Preliminary studies show that agriculture is the single activity that causes the most degradation of Nyando Community in field visit during training (left) and a healthy crop of spinach at one of the pilot sites (right) Wetlands. Climatic variability, particularly droughts normally make the situation worse as most activities get concentrated in the wetlands in search of water during such periods. A total of twelve acres is being used by the community for growing tomatoes, kales, green grams, spinach, potato vines, carrots, paper, water melons and onions among others. Community members neighboring the pilot sites have learnt and most of them have started engaging in the same activities with encouraging results. Catfish. This a very popular activity given this community cherishes fish as their staple Reservoir constructed for water supply (Left) , Harvesting of fish from pond (Right) food. above is a picture of fish pond in Ran’gul site and pupils of Okanja Primary School harvesting the fish. Wetland Products Value-Added IGAs The wetland communities have depended on wetland products for provision of several goods and services from time immemorial. However, the harvesting of these resources have been unsustainable. The objective of these activities were to train the community to produce high quality products that consume very little materials but fetch more money in the market like table mats,, wall hangings, chairs, fish traps, brooms, and others. With value addition, it is expected that the community will appreciate the wetlands as their standards of living is improved gradually. Fish–farming Four fish ponds were constructed for community members and one for a school in the project area. The main aim was to increase animal protein and to reduce biodiversity loss of juvenile catfish which are being caught in large numbers within the natural wetlands to be used as bait in the Nile Perch long line fishery. The ponds have been Hands on experience as men learn the art of making chairs and a display of achievements after quality wetland products training session Kenya Disaster Concern/Vired/Nyando UNDP Wetlands Project Way Forward Agro forestry The wetlands are located in the floodplains of the Nyando River Basin which has been deforested through unsustainable harvesting of trees mainly for fuel wood and human settlement. Erosion during the rainy seasons leads to heavy siltation of the surface water bodies with serious consequences to aquatic biodiversity and water quality. Deforestation has also led to the changes in the rainfall patterns in the region. The project has spearheaded the establishment of 7 tree nurseries in the pilot sites and selected schools to help raise seedlings for forestation programme. To date, three major tree planting ceremonies have been carried out in the area and over thousands trees have been planted. Initiatives are being made to make the communities be involved in carbon trade as there are big chunks of land along the lake which still lie fallow. . (Above) part or the seedlings in the tree nursery From the lessons learnt, the project is set to concentrate its effort to activities that would improve the approach to emerging issues and also take care of areas which have not adequately been addressed for the benefit of the Lake Victoria Basin. These include: Improved livestock production activities Awareness creation Wetland conservation is new to most community members and there is need to create awareness to enable a wider section of the community embrace the “wise-use” concept. The project used a multi-media approach to pass information to the different wetland stakeholders in the project area. Among the approaches used include radio broadcast using the local dialect, public meetings (barazas), exhibitions, essay competition among schools and celebrating the international wetland days. These have proved valuable and made the project reach many members of the local community and schools in the project area. Below is a section of the local community and school children respectively during awareness programmes. Improved Livestock Production Poor animal husbandry was identified as one of the major hindrances to food production in Nyando Wetlands. The project conducted trainings among the community members and provided seed funding for local communities to engage in dairy goat and poultry keeping. Dairy goats are intended to increase milk production and make the same available to most members of the community whose immunity is lowered due to several attacks from different diseases. Poultry keeping has proved popular particularly with women and to date they have stocked broilers severally.??? Y o u t h e picplace a pic- need to edit blackened ture or reit. Also add ture In the Multimedia awareness creation in the greater Lake Victoria Basin including publication of resource materials and policy briefs Upscale the implementation of successful alternative livelihood activities Continuous rehabilitation of the selected degraded wetland sites Mainstream climate change agenda among lakeshore wetland communities Put in place structures that would minimize conflicts in wetland ecosystems Conduct community based flood water mitigation activities along with other stakeholders Mainstream gender in the conservation and management of wetland ecosystems Develop model management plans for river mouth wetlands within the Lake Victoria Basin Explore modalities to enable communities living along the shores of Lake Victoria to participate in the carbon trade Kenya Disaster Concern/Vired/Nyando UNDP Wetlands Project stocked seasonally with Nile Tilapia and established on sunk pieces of land measuring 39x10m, and stocked with 1,050 fingerlings. Kenya Disaster Concern/Vired/Nyando UNDP Wetlands Project Improving the living standards of the inhabitants of the th project area by alleviating poverty and improving food security To identify and improve the capacity of the community to mitigate, respond and cope with the recurrent natura and environmental problems To improve education standards of inhabitants and cojoining selected schools in the wetland conservation ac tivities. To come up with a management plan of Nyando River wetland ecosystem. Kenya Disaster Concern/Vired/Nyando UNDP Wetlands Project