Assisted Natural Regeneration in Karas Forest, West Pokot County

Karas forest is located in one of the wards within the Sigor Constituency of West Pokot County in Kenya. Located in the Rift Valley region of Kenya, West Pokot is largely known for livestock production practised by the country dwellers. Over the years, the region’s forest, Karas in particular, has known progressive degradation due to grazing and other domestic needs such as biomass for energy and others. The area is the home of PACJA ‘s intervention through TerraFund for the AFR100 Project, and from which the Assisted Natural Regeneration approach was identified as an innovation to bounce back nature through monitored practices.

Why Assisted Natural Regeneration Forest in Karas?
The Natural Ecosystem Regeneration is evidence that nature has its way of bouncing back and recovering to its original status even after long periods of misuse and over-exploitation by human beings, if only allowed to recover. The anthropogenic effects usually manifest in untold disruption in the natural functions of nature, resulting in loss of biodiversity as well as requisite ecosystem services. In instances where human activities involve moving huge chunks of soil and debris, especially in construction sites, the process of natural tree seed germination and regeneration is affected because the seed bank, usually in the top soils, is buried deep underneath, resulting in poor emergence even in the event of germination.
This is the case of Karas forest, where the County Government of West Pokot initiated a mega project of constructing two huge concrete water tanks to meet the water demand of the nearby Kapenguria town and its environs. The site witnessed huge disturbance to the soil and a resultant change in the natural course of events. Notwithstanding the already dwindling number of trees in the forests due to illegal mining, the forests’ tree cover status and recovery were worsened by the construction of the water reservoirs.

Assisted natural regeneration, therefore, came in handy to offer the necessary conducive environment for the establishment and regrowth of trees, albeit naturally. Through community meetings locally known as barazas, members were sensitized on the benefits that accrue when trees thrive. As a matter of fact, trees offer a habitat to a myriad of birds, insects, and other animals, not to mention medicinal value amongst other non-timber benefits.
The initiative was thought of as an innovative approach to well manage the forests, for it can contribute to livelihood sources for the community where seeds and wildlings are collected and processed for sale to various community, private and government-owned tree nurseries.

In order to eliminate the risks and threats to tree survival, the community was urged to control grazing within the precincts of the forests to allow emerging young saplings to grow.
On the other hand, the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA) through TerraFund for AFR100 Project, engaged the County government of West Pokot to intensify surveillance meant to reduce, amongst other vices, illegal logging, grazing of livestock and frequent movement of people in the forests. This human intervention is what entails Assisted Natural Regeneration (ANR), described by the World Resources Institute (WRI) as “a nature-based, cost-effective restoration technique.” The process allows natural distribution of trees of different species in an area as opposed to artificial planting of trees, which may lead to monoculture (same tree species), thereby reducing the much sought-after biodiversity enhancement and ecosystem improvement.

As part of the community intervention and by default, the upper part or the forest neighboring private farms was fenced. This effectively reduced livestock access to the forest. Through the county intervention, forests wardens were deployed in the forests to intensify scouting to monitor and restrict movement withing the forest. The project also facilitated removal of construction debris to give room for young saplings to emerge. Further, invasive weeds were removed where young trees were growing. These interventions assisted the trees to establish and grow.

Notably, PACJA aims at planting 2% of its trees through ANR. This translates into 2080 trees restored. So far, 1478 trees were restored in Karas forest, which is 71% achievement of the total ANR target.