0 Plant Your Age Initiative by Green Africa Foundation

Green Africa Foundation in conjunction with its partners, namely, Kenya Forestry Services (KFS), Kenya Wildlife Services (KWS), United Nation Environment Programme (UNEP) and Rotary club of Nairobi has organized the second tree planting campaign dubbed “Plant age campaign”. In this campaign we are calling Kenyans from all walks of life, to plant trees equivalent to their age as way of helping our beloved country attain 10% forest cover as articulated in vision 2030.

This campaign will run through out the entire short rains season, October to December 2012.

Green Africa Foundation through its Green Africa villages tree seedling production center,  will avail tree seedlings for this event. To support Green Africa Foundation farmers seedling are being availed at subsidized price of Kenya Shillings Thirty (KES 30) per seedling. Alternatively tree seedlings can be obtained from any of KFS tree nurseries country wide.

The climax of this campaign will be a tree planting event on 17th November 2012 to be held at Nairobi National Park. For those who will prefer, there will be a hole digging machine on hire at cost of Kenya Shillings Fifty (KES 50) per hole. We have an M-Pesa dedicated pay bill number 505900 for this event.

You are cordially invited to grace this important event.

www.greenafricafoundation.org. 

0 Wangari Maathai Institute for Peace and Environmental Studies

In a world fractured by the effects of environmental degradation, political turmoil, and economic crises, it is easy to forget that cultures of peace depend on good governance and equitable management of our natural resources. Sustainable development from the grass-roots up can only happen if these three core issues are addressed. Furthermore, the connection between environmental challenges and local conflicts cannot be assessed separately. They must be understood and acted upon not just by academics, but by as many different kinds of people as possible – bustling city-dwellers, hard-working villagers and farmers, children, poets, dreamers – and by those who visit our country and carry away with them a sense of our key cultural developments and aspirations. Moreover, successful fusion of university research and traditional training requires the provision not only of academic resources, but of experiential learning opportunities, community mentoring, and utilization of indigenous knowledge.

Nobel Laureate Prof. Wangari Maathai

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0 12 Year old Kenyan boy honoured at the UN International Day of Peace

Stephen Njoroge is sipping a mango juice, dressed in a blue school uniform like any other boy his age. Mango trees are his favourite — but as an environmentalist, Njoroge loves trees of all varieties. And at just 12 years, he has planted over 10,000 of them — and made it to the UN history books. Last Friday, his efforts to create a sustainable future for Kenya were honoured at the UN International Day of Peace. Kenya’s most eminent conservationist, the late Prof. Wangari Maathai, once said tree planting was “her little thing”.  Three years ago, Njoroge decided to make it his big thing — and has been working to keep Kenya’s forests healthy ever since.  Not surprisingly, Maathai’s legacy has influenced the young boy, but he says his organisation, We Care Club, was a family operation from the start. 

"Our family loves the environment” Stephen Njoroge. Photo/SARA MOJTEHEDZADEH  NATION MEDIA GROUP

Start a club

“Our whole family has had this love for the environment so I decided to start a club to show how we really care.” Thanks to his uncle who grew seedlings, Njoroge and his school friends had a ready supply of young trees to plant — first in their backyard, and then in public forests like Karura. And thanks to Njoroge’s father, they were never short on inspiration either. “My dad worked for the United Nations and he really loved the environment” remembers Njoroge. “We always used to go for trips with him checking the climate of places and the kind of trees that grow there.” The elder Njoroge has since passed away, but his son is keeping his legacy alive at the UN.

“He is a young person who has made a mark, and we want to recognise him, especially because he is working for peace,” said Irene Mwakesi of the United Nations Information Centre.  But planting 10,000 trees requires no small amount of teamwork, so Njoroge insisted that his entire class at Mariki School in Nairobi accompany him to the UN celebration in Nairobi. “I had to bring the whole army!” he maintains.

The We Care Club is a veritable army now. It has grown from just 100 members to over 5,000. “A fact that I’ve learned is not everybody is a tree hugger,” says Njoroge. “So we try and find what they are interested in. For example a number of people in the club like playing football. So we plant trees and find a place where we can play football together. “Since we are kids, we don’t like all these official things. So we are trying to make it a bit more fun.”

That is a relief for Njoroge’s mother, Mercy Njoroge, who says: “It’s a big responsibility he’s taken on his shoulders. So to protect the fact that he’s a child is important to me.” And Stephen, for his part, credits his mother with helping him balance his environmentalism and school work, a gargantuan task for a boy who has planted the equivalent of a small forest. “She’s the one who gives me the repeated inspiration. When I’m feeling down and feeling like I can’t handle all the pressure, she’s the one who usually helps me out, tells me how to set my goals and take them one by one.”

Stephen certainly has ambition in abundance: he has already served as an ambassador for Kenya at the 2011 United Nations environmental summit in Indonesia, has travelled to five continents, and hasn’t ruled out a running for President. His political career may have to wait for some years, but Njoroge sees his youth as an asset rather than an obstacle. “I noticed that its only older people who are inspiring children. Now I’m trying to make children inspire older people.”

To that end, he has started a campaign to enlist the help of public figures in Kenya for his tree planting projects. Last week, he officially launched the We Care Club, an event attended by the Ministry of the Environment and the Kenya Forestry Service officials.  But Njoroge has another invitation to extend — to the President Kibaki. “President Kibaki’s birthday is coming up and we want to do something special for him since this is going to be his last year as the President. “We can do something he likes. Like go play golf, or something like that.”

Source: Daily Nation;  Story By SARA MOJTEHEDZADEH 

0 Restoring The Ecology Can Boost The Economy

Research co-authored by Bournemouth University (BU) Professor Adrian Newton and published in the journal Science shows that ecological restoration in areas of environmental degradation can help reverse global biodiversity losses, as well as promoting recovery of ecosystem services.

However the research also showed that measures of biodiversity and ecosystem services are higher in pristine land, freshwater and marine systems than in restored systems.

Examples of ecosystem services include improved water quality and increased carbon storage, services which benefit human well-being.

The research was carried out by an international team from the University of Alcalá in Spain, the UK’s Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, and Bournemouth University in the UK.

Professor Newton, an environmental conservation expert from BU’s Centre for Conservation Ecology and Environmental Change said: "These results highlight the importance of ecological restoration approaches for addressing the environmental degradation that has occurred in many parts of the world. The research suggests that restoration can offer a 'win-win' solution, by increasing the provision of environmental benefits to people, while at the same time increasing biodiversity."

Lead author, Professor José M. Rey Benayas from the University of Alcalá and President of the International Foundation for Ecosystem Restoration said: "In addition to the improved biodiversity resulting from ecological restoration, our findings show that such restoration also has benefits for ecosystem services. These services can act as an engine of economy and a source of green employment, so our results give policymakers an extra incentive to restore degraded ecosystems.”

Ecological restoration is widely used to reverse the environmental degradation caused by human activities. However, the effectiveness of restoration actions in increasing provision of both biodiversity and ecosystem services has not previously been evaluated systematically.

The research team analysed results from 89 restoration assessments carried out in a wide range of ecosystem types across the globe. On average, ecological restoration increased provision of biodiversity and ecosystem services by 44% and 25% respectively. Increases in biodiversity and ecosystem service measures following restoration were positively correlated. However, values of both remained lower in restored than in intact (undamaged) reference ecosystems.

The results indicate that restoration actions focused on enhancing biodiversity should support increased provision of ecosystem services, particularly in tropical terrestrial areas, which hold the largest amounts of biodiversity and are usually subject to high levels of human pressure."

Co-author, Professor James Bullock from the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology said: "We have shown that across the globe restoration projects are able to help reverse loss of the biodiversity and ecosystem services in areas degraded by human activities. While restoration can help reverse losses, this research shows it is critical for human well-being that we conserve pristine habitats and the biodiversity and ecosystem services they provide."

Source: Bournemouth University (2009, August 31). Restoring The Ecology Can Boost The Economy. ScienceDaily. Retrieved September 8, 2012, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­/releases/2009/08/090828150735.htm

Journal Reference: Benayas et al. Enhancement of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services by Ecological Restoration: A Meta-Analysis. Science, 2009; 325 (5944): 1121 DOI:10.1126/science.1172460

3 Backyard Aquaponics: DIY system to raise fish with veggies

Rob Torcellini bought a $700 greenhouse kit to grow more vegetables in his backyard. Then he added fish to get rid of a mosquito problem and before long he was a committed aquaponic gardener. Now his 10 by 12 foot greenhouse is filled with not only vegetables, but fish. And the best part is: the poo from that fish is what fertilizes his garden.

Fish poo as fertilizer
“The fish excrete ammonia through their gils as their waste and that ammonia travels in the water and gets pumped into the growbeds," explains Torcellini, "and there's a naturally occurring bacteria that converts the ammonia into nitrites and then the nitrates and then the nitrates are absorbed by the plants as a fertilizer. So it's a whole natural process that breaks it down.” You don’t have to understand the chemistry to grow this way. There are hundreds of Americans, and thousands of Australians (it’s popular in this drought-prone country because aquaponics uses 80-90% less water than traditional agriculture), who are growing fish in a symbiotic environment with their vegetables.

Aquaculture + hydroponics
Aquaponics combines fish farming (aquaculture) with the practice of raising plants in water (hydroponics). It’s organic by definition: instead of using chemical fertilizers, plants are fertilized by the fish poo (and pesticides/herbicides can’t be introduced to kill pests because they could harm the fish). Since the plants don’t need dirt, aquaponics allows gardeners to produce more food in less space. And in addition to the vegetables they can grow, most aquaponics gardeners cultivate edible fish as well.

Backyard fish farming
The most popular choice of fish is tilapia because it’s breeds well, grows fast and can survive in fluctuating water conditions (i.e. changes in temperature, pH and oxygen). Though tilapia are a warm water fish so for people in colder climates- like Torcellini who lives in Eastford, Connecticutt-, it’s not a great option. Torcellini is currently farming goldfish and some koi, but he explains that if he wanted to grow edible fish, he could switch to a cold water fish like trout or perch. In the video above, Rob shows us the aquaponics greenhouse in his backyard, that he built mostly from scavenged parts, as well as his DIY indoor system where he’s growing lettuce under a grow light. He also shows us how he built his systems and talks about how most aquaponics farmers are do-it-yourself types.

You can try this at Home!