In a society primarily reliant on farming for human livelihood, natural resources are bound to be adversely depleted and affected, causing drastic environmental degradation in the long run.
In Kenya; WWF works in the Lake Naivasha Basin and the Mara Basin. The Lake Naivasha basin hosts over fifty large-scale horticultural farms predominantly for export, and over 30,000 smallholder farms predominantly for subsistence and local markets. One of the major threats to the basin is soil erosion resulting from poor land-use, riparian degradation and deforestation, which pollutes the rivers and lake, and contributes to lowering of lake levels.
The scheme is a market-driven scheme that has “buyers” comprised of businesses around the lake supporting land-use change by “sellers” or the upper catchment farmers. 314 farms involved in the PES program have one common characteristic; steep slopes that are susceptible to soil erosion that washes away fertile top soil down to the river.
Cumulatively the total acreage of the farms in the program is 945 acres with an additional 200 farmers bringing the total to 514 by 2015. If these relatively small pieces of land are not well conserved, the farmers end up harvesting very little that cannot sustain their families leading to food insecurity.
In Kenya; WWF works in the Lake Naivasha Basin and the Mara Basin. The Lake Naivasha basin hosts over fifty large-scale horticultural farms predominantly for export, and over 30,000 smallholder farms predominantly for subsistence and local markets. One of the major threats to the basin is soil erosion resulting from poor land-use, riparian degradation and deforestation, which pollutes the rivers and lake, and contributes to lowering of lake levels.
The scheme is a market-driven scheme that has “buyers” comprised of businesses around the lake supporting land-use change by “sellers” or the upper catchment farmers. 314 farms involved in the PES program have one common characteristic; steep slopes that are susceptible to soil erosion that washes away fertile top soil down to the river.
Cumulatively the total acreage of the farms in the program is 945 acres with an additional 200 farmers bringing the total to 514 by 2015. If these relatively small pieces of land are not well conserved, the farmers end up harvesting very little that cannot sustain their families leading to food insecurity.
