Socio-economic issues in rural afforestation in Kenya

Abstract

Since Kenya was declared a British Colony in 1895 land use and land tenure has undergone rapid evolution from varied traditional African communal systems into freehold commercialised or semi-commercialised systems. Forests and trees in private lands have also undergone a revolutionary history within the period from being an enemy of traditional African cultivators and pastoralists into an integral part of land use systems of modern Kenya. Agrarian development, mostly due to external and internal demands during and after the colonial era, was at the expenseof forests and natural vegetation. The process was essential because of the inherent competitive nature of trees and agricultural crops and pasture. This was with the full backing of land use and labour policies and preceded mass tree planting by almost three decades. Farm forestry and agrarian systems in the

African sector is a function of biophysical factors, population density, infrastructural development, economic scarcity and social values within the rural and household socio-economic context. Within a short period, small holder farm forestry has shown impressive developments which only differ by degree across the country, mostly on the biophysical limitations. In ASAL areas, due to the moisture deficit for favourable tree growth and survival, mass tree growing beyond settled homesteads is uneconomical within the existing conditions as compared to medium and high potential zones. Rural land use changes are driven largely by demand forces often outside the agricultural and forestry sector. Unless forestry assumes economic scarcity or high social value, trees will be replaced by high value land use systems or use of scarce resources for such land use will not be justifiable beyond subsistence level. Depending on local demand forces and socio-economic status, Cost-Benefit techniques indicate that farm forestry is an efficient land use within existing resource limitations and in most areas resource mobility between various competing land use systems is shifting in a continuum. The dynamism between trees and other land uses in general favours the high value systems in terms of returns to the invested resources and the prevailing general economic and political conditions. The promotion and approach to rural tree growing by farmers has changed over the period. It has been farmer initiated activity to serve the households' perceived socio-economic needs with little or no external support. But with recent environmental awareness and increasing push of tree planting solution to the environmental dilemma facing many rural areas, farmers have been urged to plant more trees irrespective their local socio-economic importance to the land owners. The economic and social benefits from farm forestry resources have often been exaggerated to boost the morale of rural forestry development agents which at the same time could raise unattainable expectations among the farmers. The individualisation of land ownership set a precedent where communal ownership was weakened and individual property ownership has become entrenched in Kenyan society. Group or communal participation is limited to few communal properties which individuals cannot provide cost-effectively or where benefits are indivisible such as schools, dams, dispensaries and roads. Promotion of forestry activities on communal or group efforts within the existing rural afforestation policies and socio-economic conditions is not economically feasible for the participants to derive sufficient benefits to sustainably provide their services despite the significant conceptual appeal and support strategies. Approaches which modify the traditional forestry systems to benefit farmers within existing household socio-economic context through participatory programmes and macro-reforms to improve economic viability of forestry activities are more likely to be adopted than the current subsidised and often objectively contradictory strategies.