Protecting Kenya’s forests with eco-friendly cooking stoves

Project update

18 Dec

Written By International Tree Foundation

Last month, a team of twelve dedicated volunteers helped craft and install 500 eco-friendly cooking stoves to ease pressure on Kenya’s Upper Imenti Forest.

Nestled among the majestic Mount Kenya is Upper Imenti, an indigenous forest that’s a sanctuary for wildlife like elephants, antelopes and the African crowned eagle.

For local communities, the forest is a source of nourishment, medicine and timber.

But decades of intensive charcoal production and the illegal logging of indigenous trees like camphor, cedar and wild olive has wreaked havoc on Upper Imenti Forest. Precious wildlife habitats, like elephant corridors, are quickly disappearing. And the livelihoods of communities, mostly small-scale farmers, have been threatened.

Community-led restoration

Since 2019, we’ve been engaging and supporting local communities in this region to plant trees together with our long-term partner, MEFECAP, a women-led community group.

Our approach is holistic. And it involves growing crops like potatoes alongside newly planted trees. This method benefits both people and biodiversity as the trees provide shade and nutrients for the crops, while the crops provide nourishing food and additional income for the farmers.

Easing pressure on the forest through eco-friendly cooking stoves

But our restoration efforts extend beyond planting trees. We also work to protect them.

And last month, we provided 500 households each with an eco-friendly cooking stove to replace traditional cooking stoves ‘jikos’, which require a lot of firewood. This is all thanks to the hard work and dedication of 12 volunteers who, after training, helped craft and install the stoves across kitchen’s in their community.

And here you can see the excitement of some community members who received their very own eco-friendly cooking stove.

The eco-friendly stoves are crafted from clay which is locally available, making them affordable and accessible for local communities. And they are more efficient than traditional stoves as they require a significantly less amount of firewood.

So, they’ll not only help reduce pressure on Upper Imenti Forest, they’ll also free up time for women, who mainly bear the burden of fetching firewood.

By planting trees, promoting sustainable agricultural practices and adopting eco-stoves, local communities are taking concrete steps to protect Upper Imenti Forest.