East Africa’s natural capital faces grave future

Researchers have warned that the economic value of East Africa’s natural capital will be lost in the next 30 years through degradation and climate change if no action is taken.

According to Prof Nick Oguge of the University of Nairobi, natural capital refers to geology, soil, air, water and living things that contribute heavily to climate regulating capacities, carbon storage and harvestable resources in the region.

During the East Africa transboundary ecosystem conference with journalists, Prof Oguge highlighted that climate change is causing habitat loss for wildebeest, and bees in the Mara Serengeti ecosystem are unable to effectively produce honey since weather patterns have affected the blooming of flowers.

Nolkireu Wuantai, 60, a beekeeper in the Oleisukut Conservancy had a rough start to the year. Together with a group of other women beekeepers at the conservancy, they were hoping to get a bountiful honey harvest. Unfortunately, this year, they say, there has been confusion with flowering patterns and the bees could not keep up with the new pattern.

 “January used to be a wet season and people used to plant at the time. This year, it is very dry. We used to have rains in June and July, this year was dry,” explains David Kinanta, the Oleisukut Conservancy manager. “Out of the 50 hives, only 12 were colonised.”

Mara River

He added: “When it is dry and there is need for production, they will spend a lot of time going down to the Mara River to get water. A dry season makes everything go slow. It is even worse when it comes in the unexpected months as we observed this year,” he explained. He asked people who live around the Mau Forest not to cut down trees because, “destruction downstream affects production upstream.”

Ms Wuantai and the other women are now aware that they need to put in place mitigation measures before the effects of climate change become more devastating.

A recent study on migrating wildlife found that bee territories have also shrunk by nearly half in the East African plains and also contributed to degradation of the environment. Of great concern according to the report are the East African plains that run from Tsavo-Mkomazi ecosystem and the Serengeti-Mara ecosystem.

Prof Oguge told Healthy Nation that the value of the region’s natural capital is approximated to have an economic value of $6.5 billion. These assets include 11 per cent through nature tourism and 72 per cent of this is water regulation, erosion control, purifying water for people, carbon storage as well as crop pollination.

At the same time, he added, the area supports livestock production to a tune of $0.5 billion a year which can be harnessed if the regional governments and sub-national authorities undertake responsible pastoral approaches as they prepare appropriate plans to demarcate areas for purposes of agriculture, livestock production wildlife conservation.

“We can as well encourage the communities in these areas to tap into the carbon credit markets right from the forests to grasslands to compliment community earnings since climate change has made extraction of many resources hard,” he added.

Prof Oguge who is also undertaking a program on natural capital for the East Africa region funded by the United States Agency for International Development the capacity to manage water flow in degraded areas in Mara Serengeti could decline by 35 per cent and cost the government $350 million a year to restore the area.

“The great East Africa plains, the Northern Savannas, the Albertines Rift forest and Ruweru-Mugesera-Akagera Wetlands together contribute over 10.9 billion dollars annually to the East African Community economies and 60 billion dollars to the global economy,” he added. Failing to protect this natural capital in four key landscapes will cost the region more than $10.9 billion per year over the next few decades.

Mr Drew McVey, the wildlife adviser at the World Wide Fund for Nature-Kenya, says several studies by scientists found that larger wildlife species populations in key areas on the Kenyan side have reduced by more than 75 per cent.

Serengeti-Mara

“Human population in areas surrounding the Serengeti-Mara increased by 2.4 per cent per year on average from 1999 to 2012, damaging the habitat, disrupting migration routes of wildebeest, zebra and gazelle,” said Mr McVey. “Even for reasonably well-protected areas like the Serengeti and Mara, alternative strategies may be needed that sustain the coexistence and livelihood of local people and wildlife in the landscapes surrounding protected areas through conservancies,” he added.

Prof Oguge raised the same concerns, saying extreme declines in the numbers of migrating wildebeest and loss of most migration routes in Kenya and Tanzania were concerning. Four of the five contemporary migrations, including the Mara-Loita one, are severely threatened. He said this increases the risk of local extinctions of wildebeest in the four historically wildlife-rich East African ecosystems of Serengeti-Mara, Greater Amboseli, Mara-Loita, Athi-Kaputiei and Tarangire-Manyara.

The leading causes of decline are poorly planned agricultural expansion, fences, settlements, urban centres, roads and other infrastructure, poaching and competition with livestock. Government policy in Kenya also encourages private over communal land tenure, promoting land subdivisions.

A key government wildlife policy failure in Kenya is that it has focused primarily on protected areas. But these areas cover only 8 per cent of the country’s land surface and support only 35 per cent of the wildlife. The other 65 per cent occupy private lands, which all the four threatened wildebeest migrations cross.