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https://reasonstobecheerful.world/how-lush-hillside-farms-are-protecting-nairobis-water-supply/>
"For many years, Esther Wandia Kiguru lived a tough life of labor up in Kenya’s
misty highlands. The single mother toiled away at her tea plantation on the
steep hillsides of the Aberdare Mountains, earning a living to support her
three children.
But that changed when local authorities and private businesses began to
recognize the importance small-scale farmers like Wandia — whose land is in a
watershed that supplies the majority of the capital city Nairobi’s drinking
water — could have.
“I was an ordinary peasant farmer before,” says the 62-year-old, sitting beside
her newly built, modern brick home in the hills. “But my life changed
completely.”
In 2018, local authorities contacted Wandia in the hope of transforming the way
that she managed her land. First, the officials offered to help to install a
50,000-liter reservoir that would allow her to collect rainwater and cultivate
different types of crops such as avocados, bringing in greater profits while
stabilizing the surrounding terrain.
Wandia, enticed by what was a rare opportunity in Kenya’s remote Muranga
County, quickly agreed. “It was like a blessing from God,” she says.
The initiative was part of the Upper Tana-Nairobi Water Fund, which was
launched in 2015 by the international nonprofit The Nature Conservancy to
connect companies and communities in Kenya with the goal of cleaning up
important water sources. The approach is showing a successful way of
maintaining and even improving the supply of water to urban populations while
simultaneously providing income to rural areas.
The Upper Tana River Basin, which spans 1.7 million hectares, supplies 95
percent of Nairobi’s drinking water, helps to sustain important biodiversity,
drives agricultural activities that feed millions and provides half of the
country’s hydropower output.
Yet high population growth in the basin over the past few decades as well as an
increase in unsustainable agriculture mean that sturdy forests that previously
prevented erosion have been replaced by short-term cash crops, and that water
pollution has risen due to sediment being washed into the watershed and trash
produced by locals. This is far from a local issue: The UN considers the issue
of water quality degradation to be one of the main challenges societies across
the planet will face during the 21st century.
The Water Fund, which uses a private-public financing model, takes investment
from companies downstream in Nairobi and passes it onto farmers living in the
watershed. In effect, Kenyan breweries and water companies that need reliable
water in the city pay into the fund, which then disburses money to people
upstream to buy tools and improve their practices in ways that conserve water
and improve their livelihoods."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
