NATURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
Natural resources is a very integral part of our livelihoods. Many rural communities depend upon activities like agriculture as their main source of income. Kenya is facing a huge negative impact of climate change that has led to the deterioration of natural resources due to the increased frequency and intensity of disasters – both natural and man-made. FSK recognizes the dependency of agriculture on natural resources and its impact on the farming communities, socio-economic and environmental status. FSK, therefore, engages communities in diverse climate change mitigation and adaptation techniques as outlined below.
Conservation Agriculture (CA), Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) and Dryland Farming.
FSK is currently working in various part of the country implementing projects which seek to capacity build communities through CA technologies with its main objective being to increase productivity while minimizing the disruption of the soil’s structure, composition, and natural biodiversity while building resilience. FSK has employed CA & CSA through crop rotation, use of cover crops, IPM (Integrated Pest Management), use of tolerant crop varieties hence reducing and removing greenhouse gas emissions, where possible.
This has contributed to improving crop yields while safeguarding the long-term environmental and financial sustainability of farming. This has also enhanced livelihoods and strengthened community-based natural resource management.
This is done through Agroforestry and establishing tree/shrub nurseries at the household level. One of the trees/shrubs that FSK has identified for Agroforestry includes Faidherbia Albida, Sesbania among others.
For example, Faidherbia albida’s drought tolerance and reverse phenology qualities enable farmers in these regions to improve agricultural productivity through sustainable agricultural practices and environmental resilience hence food security.
FSK promotes the adaptation of dryland farming techniques to communities in Arid Semi-arid Lands (ASALs) this includes the right choice of crop, diversification of crop variety, Water saving technology including Zai pit, sunken bed, and hand water pan among other technologies. This has had a huge positive impact at the household level.
Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR)
This is a low cost,easy to adopt technology that FSK in partnership with World Vision Kenya is implementing under Re-greening Africa Program, where local communities are trained to manage degraded lands thus rejuvenating them into natural eco-systems that support biodiversity. This technology is applied degraded ecosystems such as mangrove forest, dryland and moist land, forest as well as in Savannah and woodlands. Communities are able to revitalize these ecosystems without necessarily planting tree seedlings that have proven difficult to manage.
Focus on the Donkey as Climate Change Resilience, Mitigation, and Adaptation Livestock.
For many years the donkey has remained as orphaned livestock. NGOs, local communities and indeed government planners have left it out while planning for livestock development. It has traditionally been assumed that the donkey is tough enough to cater for itself much as this animal is the prototype livestock for community resilience. In all areas of operation around the country, the donkey has proven to be the animal that the whole household falls back to for the all-important stuff including transport of food items, farm supplies, Wood fuel, Water, Tree seedlings to interior parts of Mau forest that could not be accessed by vehicles or motorbikes and indeed supply of feeds and water to the rest of the livestock.
In this context, FSK has been working with communities in Narok and Baringo counties to ensure donkeys have access to feed and better welfare so as to offer better services to communities, especially during drought periods. This is done through training donkey owners on pasture establishment, storage and linking them to local service providers to access health care services. The communities are also trained on proper animal husbandry practices to ensure donkey are in good form of health
In FSK Climate mitigation and adaptation effort the organization targets improvement of donkey welfare at the household level, whenever climate change related disaster strikes.
