Makueni community embarks on restoring forest it destroyed for charcoal
Residents plant seedlings at Mbui Nzau Hill in Makueni County on November 28, 2024. The local community has embarked on rehabilitating the hill, which was destroyed by charcoal producers
What you need to know:
- An insatiable appetite for charcoal in Nairobi fueled the destruction of Mbui Nzau Hill. Underneath the charcoal production craze was a scheme by some individuals to encroach the hill.
Thirty years after communities bordering Mbui Nzau Hill in Makueni County cut down all the mature trees on the hill to produce charcoal, they have now embarked on a spirited campaign to rehabilitate the rocky hill.
Mr Kimwele Mutinda, who settled in the area after being kicked out by the government from the neighbouring Chyulu Hills is among the key faces in the Mbui Nzau Hill rehabilitation drive.
“We are determined to restore Mbui Nzau Hill’s lost glory by planting and growing trees. We have learned our lesson,” Mr Mutinda told Healthy Nation recently on the sidelines of a ceremony to mark the start of the rehabilitation of the hill and its environs. As the head of a committee of residents spearheading the Mbui Nzau Hill landscape restoration campaign, Mr Mutinda’s role entails rallying the community behind the cause and overseeing the actual planting of seedlings on every nook and cranny of the hill and the neighbouring farmlands.
Mr Mutinda, 64, is often overcome with acute nostalgia when recalling how the Mbui Nzau region was once a regional food basket. This is what attracted him to the area in 1988, when the government flushed out dozens of communities which had encroached Chyulu Hills. Some of the evictees pitched tents in Mbui Nzau Township. “Mbui Nzau Hill was a magnet. The surrounding area used to rain even when the other regions went without rain. This changed after dozens of charcoal producers descended on the hill armed with axes and machetes,” he said.
An insatiable appetite for charcoal in Nairobi fueled the destruction of Mbui Nzau Hill. Underneath the charcoal production craze was a scheme by some individuals to encroach the hill. Authorities looked the other way as communities scrambled for portions of the hill. They converted any flat section of the hill into farmland. As a validation, they cited forest farming at the Mau Forest in the Rift Valley, which the government had allowed. It took no time before all the mature acacia tortillas were depleted. “Over the years, we have completely lost Mukongoo, a giant tree which grew beyond 50 feet tall when mature. It dominated Mbui Nzau Hill and was good for charcoal. We cannot trace its seeds anymore,” said William Wambua, a resident, referring to African ebony by its local name. More than 200 homesteads call the hill home.
Today, Mbui Nzau Hill is in a sorry state. What used to be a dense forest teeming with antelopes, lions, leopards and monkeys has become a pile of boulders. Kwamuthita, a permanent river which emanated from the hill, has since dried up, exposing residents to acute water shortage. “Since trees attract rainfall, greening Mbui Nzau Hill will translate to more rainfall in this region,” said Hellen Katatha, citing lessons she has picked from conservationists.
Trees and rain
According to Mary Mbenge, an environmental conservationist and a climate action champion, trees create rain. “Trees release water vapor through transpiration. It condenses and ultimately falls back as rainfall. However, the number of trees in a given area need to be high for them to have an impact. They also need to be broadleaved for them to release a significant amount of water vapor into the atmosphere. Indigenous trees are highly suited for this purpose,” she said. The rejuvenation of River Kibwezi in recent years, which is linked to the aggressive restoration of Chyulu Hills, and President William Ruto’s push for restoration of wetlands and the growing of 15 billion trees by 2032, has inspired the rehabilitation of the Mbui Nzau landscape.
A sprawling tree nursery at the foot of Mbui Nzau Hill spells out the scale of the landscaping campaign. An ethnobotanical study commissioned by Makueni County government and Kenya Forest Research Institute on the most suitable trees for restoring the hill informed the choice of the seedlings at the nursery. “There are 600,000 Acacia tortillas, Acacia Senegal, Acacia mellifera, Acacia geradii, Croton megalocarpus, Senna siemea, Markhamia lutea, Delonix rigea, Grivellia robusta, Tamarindus indica, Melia volkensii, and Neem seedlings in this nursery. In addition, we have pawpaw, lemon, mango and guava seedlings,” said Jacob Mwanduka, an environmentalist contracted to establish and manage the indigenous seedlings nursery by Fadhili Trust, a non-governmental organisation at the centre of the Mbui Nzau Hill rehabilitation drive.
According to Makueni County Environment Executive Japheth Mang’oka, Mbui Nzau, Mikuyuni and Kalungu sublocations are lined up for restoration in the three-year programme. A key component of the rehabilitation drive is promoting alternative sources of livelihood after the residents identified poverty as a key driver of deforestation. “We are planting 300,000 seedlings on the hill itself. The rest of the trees, especially the fruit trees, will go into the area bordering the hill. Apart from growing trees, the Mbui Nzau Hill campaign also promotes good agricultural practices and affordable banking as key to sustainable development,” said Mathew Mutembei, the head of the Mbui Nzau Hill rehabilitation programme at Fadhili Trust.
Mr Mulandi is among dozens of households around Mbui Nzau Hill who have embraced kitchen gardens as an alternative source of livelihood. They produce assorted vegetables, which provide them with food and earn them money using locally available resources. “In the wake of erratic rainfall, we are using zai pits to grow maize. We have seen increased yields,” he said.
According to Kikumbulyu South MCA Jades Kalunda, the community bordering Mbui Nzau Hill has identified alternative sources of fuel as a priority during recent budget making processes. As a result, Makueni County government has rolled out an ambitious programme to transition the Mbui Nzau community from charcoal and wood fuel by promoting energy conserving stoves and the use of cooking gas in the region. “We are currently distributing cooking gas cylinders to vulnerable communities bordering Mbui Nzau Hill. In the 2024/2025 financial year, we have set aside Sh2 million in the ward development budget for that purpose. We shall increase the budget in subsequent years. The plan is to conserve the environment by significantly reducing the demand for charcoal and firewood,” he told Healthy Nation.
Stakeholders have identified unchecked encroachment of Mbui Nzau Hill as the biggest challenge facing its restoration. The communities which call the hill home are associated with clearing large tracts of land to create farmlands. A petition by a section of residents to install vigilantes to manage the hill has not found favour with authorities. Similarly, bids to fence off the hill have failed. Kibwezi Deputy County Commissioner Paul Khaoya has warned communities that have encroached the hill to support the restoration campaign or face eviction.
