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Lari Landscape, Kenya: Cooperation Sows Benefits for Livelihoods and Ecosystems

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It’s a crisp morning in Lari’s Aberdare Forest, and farm coordinator Tabitha Muthoni and her team are busy with the morning’s tasks at Cheer Up Farm. At the tail end of the country’s “long rain” season, the warm sun is a welcome departure from the previous day’s downpour and provides the perfect opportunity to lay out just-harvested spinach and green bananas to dry.

Muthoni enters the nearby tent and methodically places the spinach leaves side by side on the highest drying rack.

This solar dryer, purchased through a small grant provided by community-based nonprofit organization Kijabe Environment Volunteers (KENVO), has already proven to be a game changer for farmers in Kijabe, an agricultural community 62 kilometers (39 miles) northwest of Nairobi nestled within the Lari landscape of Kenya’s central highlands. A mainstay of the landscape since the late '90s, KENVO acts as the glue that unites the seemingly disparate activities happening in the landscape.

The device uses the sun’s heat to dry produce placed inside it, dramatically increasing the time before it loses value as food. That means that the farmers’ excess vegetables, which were once discarded or left to rot, can now be dried, ground and transformed into powdered supplements worth nearly three times their price fresh. Distant consumers benefit from the boost in nutrition, while Lari’s growers put the money they once lost into their pockets.

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The dryer provides hope to counter the region’s mounting challenges from a lack of access to markets for fresh produce and increasingly unpredictable weather. For as long as anyone can remember, the country’s rainy seasons arrived and departed like clockwork. But they have become increasingly erratic due to a rapidly changing climate. For many farmers, this has meant either too much or too little produce and, ultimately, a loss of livelihood.

“Our area has a very good climate for agriculture, but the challenge is always trying to avoid excessive loss of crops,” Muthoni says. “Especially during the rainy season, many farmers are left with a surplus of their harvest. With access to the solar dryer, we can reduce food waste and improve income for the community.” 

Over time, more and more people have come around to benefit from the dryer. What began as an experiment involving a few people has now evolved into a cooperative of nearly 1,200 local farmers.

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The simple but meaningful addition of a solar dryer to the area’s agricultural output is just one piece of the local landscape partnership (LP) effort to revive Lari’s forests, an ecosystem once depleted by overexploitation from illegal logging, residential charcoal production and unsustainable farming practices.

Decades of competing interests between Lari’s residents, landowners, NGOs and businesses had made local people and nature poorer. Meanwhile, weak land governance combined with increasing deforestation had left the area drained of native trees that had previously prevented erosion and drought. 

Ann Njuki, the leader of the Gatamaiyu Water Resource Users Association, said locals witnessed a sharp decline in indigenous trees over the years. And as people cut down native species, they replaced those trees with exotic species that grow quickly and offer a quick source of cooking fuel and income. The domino effect continued from there.

“This kind of unsustainable use led to degradation of important land bordering our rivers,” Njuki said. “The water volume and quality became too low, and the water for the community was just not enough.”

This was only one of the challenges the Lari LP aimed to tackle. Launched in 2000 and comprised of those same stakeholders who had contributed to the decline but now wanted to heal the forest, the partnership committed to aligning their seemingly disparate interests across the landscape. Their lofty goal is to support the region’s long-term, sustainable development while restoring its prized ecosystem.

Spanning nearly 44,000 hectares (170 square miles), the Lari region hosts a rich tapestry of agricultural, ecological and cultural diversity. Before the area’s different groups began cooperating, conflict over the land and its wealth of natural resources was common. Such strife strained the health of the landscape and its communities.  




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Residents within the Lari landscape deal with many challenges that are nearly impossible to overcome alone.
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The resulting tension bred a lack of trust and engagement between government entities like the Kenya Forest Service (KFS) and local communities. Many farmers who turned to illegal logging to supplement their dwindling crop production came in direct conflict with KFS efforts to protect indigenous forests. Meanwhile, ignorance about how deforestation impacted access to clean water and arable land contributed to friction among upland and valley communities. Many resource users didn’t realize that native trees play a critical role in maintaining healthy water levels in local catchment areas and serving as essential carbon sinks to help combat a rapidly changing climate.

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Driven by these challenges and his passion for the environment, Lari resident David Kuria saw an opportunity. As one of the first participants in a landscape leadership course designed by 1000L core partner EcoAgriculture Partners in 2002, Kuria became determined to employ his new skills to marshal in a new era. With support from local volunteers, he mobilized a response team to eliminate illegal charcoal burning from the surrounding forests and began to build relationships with local youth and farmers to revitalize the landscape. 

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“We realized that people will extract from the forest at any cost if we continue talking about forests but we do not include agriculture in the conversation,” Kuria says. “We must support people with alternative options and access to resources.”

Among his top priorities: Working with farmers to promote sustainable agriculture, to prepare them for climate change with climate-smart agriculture and to link farmers to the markets they need to earn a living.

“All of these components must unite together to create true transformation,” Kuria says.

In 2005, the passing of Kenya’s Forest Act provided local landscape leaders like Kuria with a unique opportunity to help farmers and the KFS collaborate by developing government and KENVO-sponsored tree nurseries. These businesses supported farmers’ participation in the Plantation Establishment and Livelihood Improvement Scheme (PELIS), a program designed to provide them with arable land for five years. On this land, they would commit to planting several indigenous tree species, which had come under threat from poor land use.

KENVO shepherded the development of eight community forest associations throughout the region to ensure equitable participation and engagement by all residents. These organizations empower communities to lead in designing and implementing five-year management plans for their surrounding forest in cooperation with the KFS. This effort also led to the establishment of water-resource users associations aimed at strengthening collaboration across the landscape. 

Kuria remembers how the LP blossomed with tending from his organization. “KENVO started as a grassroots movement. But we realized that to truly impact change, we couldn’t walk alone,” he says. “We had to work with the Kenya Forest Service, agriculture department and the community together. We came to learn that by truly sharing the resources, we could tackle many complex, overlapping challengages within our landscape and achieve our collective goals for our communities.”  

Guided by KENVO, the landscape partnership has developed innovative solutions that engage a range of stakeholders within the landscape–from farmers and local government leaders to the region's rapidly growing tourism industry. This type of association is built on a land-use system called Integrated Landscape Management (ILM), which unites different groups of land and resource users and managers to reach their individual objectives and expectations. 

ILM offers a cooperative approach to boost local livelihoods, health and well-being while restoring ecosystems, protecting biodiversity and enshrining plans for long-term sustainability. It requires a coordinated system of processes that help facilitate enduring change. These principles have been a foundation for the work across Lari since 2006.





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The fate of any landscape should rest on the shoulders of the people who live and work within it. When community organizations, government agencies, companies, NGOs and indigenous groups collaborate in Landscape Partnerships (LPs), they have the power to restore their landscape and make it flourish.


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Lari’s development is now more sustainable and accelerating due mainly to the thriving LP. What began as a collaboration between a nascent KFS, community volunteers and local farmers has now grown to an alliance of more than 20 farmer associations, NGOs, regional and national government offices and the private sector, all working in tandem to ensure the landscape develops sustainably.

KENVO’s Director Nelson Muiru has witnessed how ILM transformed how groups within the landscape operate by bringing together stakeholders using the landscape approach.

“We can connect the two distinct ecological zones – the lower side and the highland where we have the forest–to bring groups together that would otherwise be in conflict,” Muiru said.

“That’s how we ensure each area is ecologically and economically strong.”

The partnership is now ready to embark on a new phase in its journey through participation in the 1000 Landscapes for 1 Billion People (1000L) initiative. As a coalition of conservation, finance, development and technology experts, the initiative aims to equip leaders with the tools and services needed to drive and sustain long-term, landscape-level change. LP leaders are working with 1000L to realize exciting new landscape financing and capability-boosting opportunities and to overcome lingering challenges the partnership continues to face.
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It took a long time for residents to begin joining together to move Lari onto the right development path, and there’s much more to go. Financing for collaborative projects within the region remains fragmented and siloed–many entities cannot raise funds jointly due to bureaucratic barriers. A lack of infrastructure is an additional obstacle, with many farmers unable to reach markets beyond Nairobi to sell their crops and honey.

But with nearly 20 years of work, collaboration and dedication under their belt, the Lari LP is primed to guide communities across the landscape into a new phase. They aim to scale these growing initiatives with the support of 1000L’s developing suite of tools, technology and landscape-focused training curriculum.

The partnership recently completed 1000L’s landscape capacity assessment, which uncovers stakeholder collaboration and innovation opportunities. Soon, leaders will take advantage of new landscape financing innovations emerging from the 1000L finance team.

For his part, Kuria, who is now a government official in Lari’s home county, is most excited about using 1000L tools to share knowledge with landscape users. It’s a significant missing capability the LP has identified.

“We need more discussion and more information exchange,” he says. “When we have this collaboration, we don't have to celebrate success alone. We can celebrate together, but we each must contribute to that success.”

With the right ingredients, people and resources, Lari’s potential for growth won’t be limited by the rainy seasons, only by how well people can cooperate to achieve their dreams for their landscape.

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Landscape Challenges

Nairobi’s rapidly expanding population brings increasing demands for natural resources and agricultural products. Lari’s forests and other natural areas welcome a growing stream of eco-tourists. Land and water degradation, ecosystem damage and more significant climate change impacts follow in their footsteps. 

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New agricultural technologies brought into Lari could shift farming practices from small-scale to intensive. Monocropping can lead to reliance on fertilizers and pesticides that impact soils and waters. Heavy farm equipment brings erosion, while industrial-scale irrigation depletes groundwater supplies. Industries that extract natural resources are also increasing in the region.


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Animals such as birds, porcupines and elephants destroy crops and property. This human-wildlife conflict impacts people’s livelihoods and safety and can lead them to kill wildlife or destroy their homes and habitats.

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Without access to sufficient funding, residents couldn't introduce less extractive agricultural systems such as zero-grazing units, fish farming and beekeeping. 

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Poor infrastructure and a lack of supportive government policies keep many farmers from reaching markets or earning the revenues that they could. For many, intermediaries who buy agricultural products at significantly reduced prices are the only option.

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David Kuria and other local landscape leaders founded KENVO in 1994 to address the rapidly degrading environment in Kenya’s Kikuyu Escarpment. They mobilized youth volunteers to restore the forest from decades of unsustainable overexploitation by hosting dedicated planting events. These projects replaced tree cover that illegal logging and charcoal production had previously destroyed.

While these activities directly supported forest regrowth, KENVO’s leaders realized they needed to address the various threats to the area’s forests and natural resources differently. In the early 2000s, the organization investigated the root causes of forest disturbances, how residents used natural resources and community attitudes about the forest. Their findings revealed a gap in community knowledge around how agricultural and logging practices negatively impact the landscape's natural resources. Their findings prompted the organization to expand its education and awareness campaigns while expanding its reforestation mission. A school outreach program introduced students to tree nursery management and tried to instill an early appreciation for the rich local biodiversity through forest walks.

Simultaneously, KENVO encouraged local farmers to diversify their farms by integrating beekeeping, fish farming, confined livestock management, agroforestry and soil conservation practices and to share their experiences with one another. KENVO designed the activities to limit the pressure local inhabitants exerted on forests. One collaboration with the Kenya Forest Service invited farmers to plant indigenous trees in their plots in exchange for access to faster-growing trees for timber use, which simultaneously expanded local wildlife habitats. Another initiative provided farmers with bee boxes to help slow agricultural land expansion by supplementing farmers’ income with honey to sell. Implementing crop rotation helped reduce soil degradation and improve fertility.  As neighbors became aware of the economic benefits that early adopters of these practices were realizing, they sought to learn about them and to emulate their experience.

Over the last two decades, KENVO’s dedication to building strong relationships and seeking innovative solutions has turned the organization into the focal point for Lari’s growing landscape partnership. With Director Nelson Miuru now at the organization’s helm, KENVO’s next stage will be expansion of the roles and responsibilities of the partnership’s many players.


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Integrated landscape management (ILM) is helping Lari’s LP identify and engage stakeholders and bring them into a formal agreement to work together. The landscape-based approach provides tools to help leaders build a shared understanding of the landscape and how resources are being used within it. Finally, local stakeholders are developing a shared vision, strategy and targets to restore degraded agricultural lands and ecosystems, conserve local biodiversity and boost livelihoods in Lari’s communities. 


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Integrated Landscape Management explicitly recognizes the social, economic and ecological complexity of landscapes. This is not always easy. Working towards effective ILM requires reaching agreement on a shared landscape vision and strategy among stakeholders who have different and sometimes competing priorities and interests.

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While a primary goal of ILM is to integrate policy measures with grassroots initiatives, in many parts of the world public programs and regulatory agencies still operate in policy silos. The result is fragmented, short-term government interventions that don’t facilitate long-term change. In many cases, taking strategic action is the key to overcoming these barriers. When David Kuria was hired by the Department of Water Resources for Kiambu County, he saw an opportunity to collaborate with the Kenya Forestry Service to consider local forests and the water that the region produced. With the support of 1000L, the Lari LP hopes to design integrated solutions that government entities and the local community can carry out together.
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While raising and allocating financial resources is a critical part of transitioning to a world with resilient landscapes, many financing structures are not organized in a way that supports landscape-level investments. The Lari LP is in the process of completing an assessment of how funding currently funnels through the landscape, how land users mobilize financial resources within the landscape and how financing can be combined to solve connected problems across sectors. The learnings from this assessment will help to reimagine how public and private money can fund projects that improve human and environmental conditions across the landscape.

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Supporting Lari's Livelihoods

Boosting livelihoods through entrepreneurship is one of the core objectives of ILM. By raising local incomes and launching sustainable businesses, LPs can meaningfully impact local communities and the private sector. Lari’s Forest Adventure Centre, a collaboration with the Lari Investment Company, is a prime example of this approach. The partnership supports the center through investments from more than 600 shareholders throughout Kiambu County. Nearly all of the 50 employees are members of the local community. The center supports a range of non-extractive forest activities such as archery, guided nature walks and ziplining.

One local guide, Stephen Kamau, has witnessed firsthand how the LP’s efforts have transformed the landscape. "Since I've started guiding in the forest, we've noticed a big change. It wasn't uncommon to come across logging activities at the perimeter of the forest. But since the inception of the partnership, together with the Kenya Forest Service, we’ve seen efforts of the local communities to plant trees and bring the forest back to life."


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Local landowners can now invest in bee boxes to harvest and sell honey that is sold at KENVO’s nearby resource center. While the initial investment is costly, In many cases farmers can earn more money harvesting honey on the same sized plot of land than they can from growing crops.

Yet even with this new form of income and KENVO’s support selling honey locally, farmers still struggle to effectively access broader markets. The Lari LP hopes to tackle this challenge through their budding collaboration with 1000L by developing eco-labeling for the landscape’s products and exploring other strategies to build national demand for local resources.



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“We started small, experimenting with a variety of potential crops before settling on bananas, green leafy vegetables like spinach and pumpkin,” Tabitha says.

“The solar dryer allows us to process nearly one ton of dried product per month, which ultimately means greater income generation for the local community. Our farmers are both our source and our market after processing. This is especially beneficial when there is a shortage of vegetables. With our dried powders and even just dehydrated greens, you can still have access to nutritious meals.”

Nearly 40% of Kenya’s food is wasted before it reaches consumers, which contributes to the country’s increasing food insecurity. The solar dryer at the Cheer Up Farm, a collective of 1,200 farmers who pooled their resources to purchase the device, ensures that farmers can maximize the return on their farming investments. By drying and processing their surplus crops each season, farmers not only avoid lost income due to food waste, but have the opportunity to earn more for their produce than if they sold it fresh. Farmers who are part of the cooperative can also take part in technical trainings on vegetable processing and agri-business basics.


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In addition to a tree nursery, bee-keeping grounds and a resource center, the KENVO campus is also home to the Forest Mist water- bottling plant. Built in 2015, the bottling plant sources its water from Lari’s Kerita Forest catchment area, which provides clean, clear water that both boosts incomes and improves local water security. This venture also reduces the cost and ecological impact of transporting water from Nairobi or other areas into Lari’s communities. In the future, the LP hopes that 1000L’s landscape finance innovations will provide the funding mechanisms they need to eliminate the plant’s use of plastic bottles and transition to more sustainable packaging.


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