about us

The Mount Kenya Region is one of the most significant reserves of remaining forestland in Kenya. Mount Kenya forest over the past years has experienced massive deforestation starting from early 1970s up to late 1990s leading to loss of 30% of its forest cover. The degradation and loss of this cover is a major problem impacting ecological stability and livelihood and has attributed to loss of major biodiversity species and ecosystem function. Pasture, grass cutting and timber harvesting are the most significant resource communities members derive from the forest.

 

Forests are like home to millions of people around the world and they contribute livelihood to billions of people living in extreme poverty. Forest provides global food security and resources like : fodder, fuel, fruits, honey, water sources  and medicine. Today  majority of the communities faces a variety of ever more serious problems including, climate change, water problems, reduced crop yields, change in weather patterns and resource depletion caused by rapid population increase. Rural households depend on trees throughout their life, for timber, firewood, fodder. Kenya is home for beautiful forest but the country has lowest tree cover in Africa with 7%, Peoples livelihood, country economy and threatened species are all endangered in Mount Kenya.

Mount Kenya Environmental Conservation is an indigenous grassroots NGO that takes approach to developments by focusing on Environmental Conservation, Community empowerment’s and capacity building. One of the major focus is to continue encouraging people to manage their land in a more sustainable way, protect degraded forest land through tree planting and to make sure that forest that are still standing are protected, share their experience with others within the region and beyond. Since 2007 MKEC has created a lot of awareness to over 5,000 community members through involving them in Agro forestry and forest restoration and this has been a major accomplishment that has been made.

Mount Kenya Environmental Conservation is active and undertakes projects in the following fields of work:

 

  • Reforestation:This involves water catchment rehabilitation, inclusive of tree nurseries establishment, management, out planting, and after planting management
  • Farm Forestry: This involves application of various agro forestry techniques with local farmers to enable them manage their farms sustainably through planting beneficial Agro forestry trees which fix nitrogen in the soil, creation of woodlots, live fences, terrace and contours windbreaks and fodder leaves.
  • Livelihoods improvement activities: These includes provision of energy cooking cook stoves that emit less carbon and consumes less firewood, Environmental conservation awareness, Good agricultural practices ,Various income generating activities like bee keeping and fruit farming.
  • Community empowerment-This is a platform upon which Mount Kenya Environmental Conservation activities are built. Communities are educated on positive impact of tree planting and provided with practical learning on how to create a sustainable livelihood. Through we provide participants with skills and resources to create and run tree nurseries.
  • Advocacy- we combine grassroots approach with international advocacy. At the grassroots level our goal is to create climate resilient communities through restoration and protection of forest watersheds and sustainable livelihood for communities. Through this approach we empower communities to take action against climate change the impact of which already witnessed across Africa through food security and water harvesting activities (adaptation) and planting appropriate tree species in appropriate places (mitigation)

about-greenforet-img

Planting Sites and Nursery sites

36 +

Tree nurseries supported since 2015

1,200,000 +

Trees planted on farms

550,000 +

Trees planted on forest lands since 2015

3000 +

farmers whose livelihoods has improved since 2015

Our Team

Professional Members of the Organization

Julian Wanja

Project Manager

Isaiah Kinoti

Forest Officer

Esther Wawira

Field Technician

MARY GORETTI WAWIRA

Lead Farmer

NICERA WANYAGA IRERI

Lead Farmer

FRIDAH WANYAGA NYAGA

Lead Farmer

Salesion Kinyua

Lead Farmer

James Mwongera

Lead Farmer

From Our Blog

Learn more about our achievement here

Partners

Our worthy partners who have supported our organization