Almost 500k trees in 6 years: our very first Treecovery project in Kenya has just started!

The regreening of the South Rift in Kenya has just entered a new phase. We’ve kick-started a Treecovery project with One Tree Planted (OTP) – the very first of its kind in Kenya! We can’t wait to start returning trees to this area together with the farmers and pastoralists, as our Treecovery projects in Tanzania show the great transformative power of this technique.

Landscape in the South Rift, already under restoration

Regreening in the South Rift 

The South Rift is a unique ecosystem, connecting the Masaai Mara-Serengeti ecosystem and the Amboseli-Kilimanjaro Ecosystem. It supports some of the richest mammal diversity in the world and is home to Maasai pastoralists: a nomadic or semi-nomadic community whose main source of income is livestock keeping.

Unfortunately, life has become difficult in this area for the Maasai, their livestock and the wild animals. The land is drying up and is severely degraded as a result of climate change and misuse of land, putting pressure on resources and livelihoods. 

Since 2022, we have been protecting livelihoods and supporting wildlife in this area by bringing back vegetation and protecting farmlands. Together with our partner SORALO and the Maasai communities, we have implemented multiple landscape restoration techniques, such as bunds, water retention ditches, grass seed banks, grazing management and more. This year we can add one more technique to the list: Treecovery. 

Farmer practicing Treecovery in Tanzania

Partnering up with One Tree Planted

349,428. That’s the number of trees we want to return to the South Rift by 2029 thanks to our new partnership with One Tree Planted. Under the umbrella of the landscape restoration project TerraFund for AFR100, we started a Treecovery project in the South Rift together. 

We are beyond excited about this development because it will be our first Treecovery project in Kenya. Treecovery is an effective method to regenerate trees. It involves the selection, pruning and protection of stumps of cut-down trees. As you no doubt know, we have used this technique extensively to regreen degraded landscapes in Tanzania, where we brought back over 18 million trees together with LEAD Foundation. In the South Rift project, besides Treecovery, we will add riparian restoration and afforestation to the techniques to be applied.

And there’s more…

Apart from regenerating 349,428 trees, we expect to restore 9,695 hectares of land thereby restoring 43% pastoral land, 5% natural forest land and 5% riparian land in the area. We target to reach 50,567 beneficiaries, 57 volunteers and create 12 new jobs during the project’s lifespan.

The above-mentioned project metrics only cover the estimated impact of our partnership with One Tree Planted. It makes up 70% of the total expected impact during this project. The other 30% is made out of our own contribution, with which the total number of recovered Treecovery trees is expected to be 499,182.