Restoration and Green Value Chain Development Increase Communities’ Resilience to Drought in Kenya’s Tana River Delta Region.
The economy and livelihoods of communities in the Tana Delta largely depend on natural resources derived from wetlands, rangelands, forests and farmland. Restoration and sustainable management of these resources are therefore critical, given their crucial role in sustaining life-support systems and powering the economy.
Since 2022, the TRI Tana Delta project has supported communities in making notable progress in integrated natural resource management and restoring degraded landscapes. A significant achievement is local communities’ enhanced resilience to climate change’s adverse effects, partly due to their access to restoration and green value chain development benefits.
Overgrazing caused by overstocking is one of the drivers of degradation in the Tana Delta. The establishment of pasture seedbanks supports the local community in growing and managing their pasture to ensure sufficient supply during drought. Pasture seedbanks have multiple benefits: the restored grass sequesters carbon, besides supporting livestock production. It also helps bind soil, enhancing water infiltration and soil organic matter. Biodiversity, such as grassland birds, has increased on lands where pasture has been re-established. The pasture seedbanks contributed to reducing drought severity in 2022 in the Tana Delta Region of Kenya.
Between July 2023 and May 2024, an additional 106.5 ha of pasture seed bank was established by 275 beneficiaries, bringing the cumulative figure of land under pasture seedbanks to 561.48 ha.
Management of the planted pastures is done by beneficiaries who treat them as a crop and make efforts to secure them from free-ranging livestock.… Read the rest