Planting trees for climate change resilience

We’re supporting local communities in Marsabit County, Kenya to plant trees that help build resilience to and combat the drastic effects of climate change.

Located in Northern Kenya, Marsabit County is a unique and beautiful semi-arid landscape comprising of the Chalbi Desert and Mount Marsabit, an extinct volcano with a luscious forest filled with native tree species.

Marsabit County is also home to a wide variety of wildlife species including ‘Big Tuskers’ - African elephants with large tusks that scrape the ground.

At just 1.1%, Marsabit is one of the least forested counties in Kenya.

Due to climate change, there is an increase in competition for natural resources like water and pasture, between people, livestock and wildlife. And for the last year, continuous low rainfall has led to extreme drought, drastically affecting the lives and livelihoods of pastoralist communities who reside here.

In partnership with Arable International, we’re supporting the local community to plant 40,000 agroforestry trees and 20,000 trees near Songa Forest.

We’re planting native trees like Acacia, which unlike many other species, flourish in this dry landscape as they can tap groundwater from well below 10 metres.

Creating green spaces

The efforts by the communities to re-green their spaces is very encouraging. The women especially actively fetch water from the natural springs to water their fruit trees and tree nurseries. The Songa women community-based organisation is spearheading the positive change in embracing farming in a pastoralist community.

We’re also planting trees in local institutions and schools. Through planting the trees in the schools, we are getting the children involved and interested in environmental conservation at an early age.

And we are happy to see school administrations making a concerted effort to ensure that the trees planted, flourish and thrive.

So far, we’ve planted 9,200 trees! And last month, we drove up to Marsabit for a week-long site visit and saw a noticeable difference in the homesteads and farms of households participating in the tree planting project.

We hope that with the positive comparisons and a lot of capacity building and sensitisation, more members of the community will embrace tree growing as well as farming for the good of people and nature.”

This project is part of AFR100 (the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative) - a country-led effort to restore 100 million hectares of land in Africa by 2030. 

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Support communities on the front lines of the climate crisis to plant trees, restore ecosystems and improve their livelihoods.