May Muthuri
Agroforestry gives Kenyan indigenous community a lifeline
The Cherangani people, an indigenous community in Kenya’s Rift Valley, have always called the Cherangani Hills Forest their ancestral home. Also known locally as the Sengwer, they were traditionally reliant on the forest for hunting and gathering, herbal medicines, honey, and sorghum and millet farming. Then the colonial government evicted them from the forest, only […] Continue Reading
Fundamental shift in drought management needed in Near East and North Africa region
The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has called for a fundamental shift in the way drought is perceived and managed in the Near East and North Africa region. The agency said in a new report issued today that a more pro-active approach based on the principles of risk reduction is needed to build greater resilience to […] Continue Reading
Greening a toxic dryland
The Aral Sea in Central Asia started to shrink in the 1960s, when the Soviets diverted water from the two main rivers that flowed into it to feed vast new cotton fields. Today, the Sea is just is 10 per cent of its historic size. The sandy dryland uncovered by the retreating water has become […] Continue Reading
World atlas of desertification: third edition
The third edition of the World Atlas of Desertification (WAD3) takes a fresh look at land degradation – a phenomenon triggered by human land use that is likely to threaten our ability to make productive use of the Earth while still maintaining the critical global environmental goods and services in the future. Human activity is […] Continue Reading
FMNR: a tool that counters drought related challenges
In his 1861 seminal book “Man and Nature”, George Marsh wrote these haunting words: “A territory larger than all Europe, the abundance of which sustained in bygone centuries a population scarcely inferior to that of the whole Western world at the present day, has been entirely withdrawn from human use, or, at best, is thinly […] Continue Reading
Understanding the positive relationship that exists between crops and trees
Mbazira is a resident of Kasambya Sub County, with two sons. He has been working with World Vision Uganda to enhance his farm through FMNR practices. He is the member of St. Margret good Samaritan farmers group is the model farmer that has succeeded in integrated tree- crop enterprise with the aim of growing crops […] Continue Reading