Abstract
Embobut forest is a constituent block of the Cherangani hills ecosystem, which entails the five major water towers in Kenya and home to the indigenous hunters and gatherers-the Cherangany/Sengwer community. This study aimed at investigating forest utilization and conservation in Embobut, Cherangani hills in the western part of Kenya. Data was collected using questionnaires, Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) and Key Informant Interviews (KII) and analysis done using Microsoft office excel 2013. A total of 42 respondents living inside and within a radius of 5 Kilometers from the forest were sampled for the study. Research findings indicated that 95.2% of the respondents benefited from the forest with fuel wood being the most harvested forest product (71.4%). Honey (26.2%) and herbal medicine (21.4%) were the second and third most harvested products from the forest. Other benefits and products obtained from the forest included grazing, building poles, wild fruits, and bush meat. Despite the conservation efforts by community members and the Kenya Forest Service (KFS), a number of conservation challenges existed in the study area including illegal grazing, illegal logging, charcoal burning, forest fires and encroachment into the forest. The researcher therefore recommends the Implementation of the Cherangani hills Forest Strategic Management Plan (2015-2040) to address the existing challenges. Integration of the indigenous communities into the political processes especially around land-use issues and forest management will also be critical to ensuring their future well-being while concurrently achieving conservation goals.
Highlights
Forests cover a third of the earth’s surface and provides a number of significant economic, social and environmental values
The youth for instance are involved more in firewood collection, harvesting building poles and charcoal burning. They are vital in realizing conservation goals as they readily provide cheap labor and in some instance volunteer to assist the authorities in conservation practices like reforestation
It is evident from the study that the forest community members are dependent on the forest for direct and indirect benefits despite the various challenges facing forest conservation
Summary
Forests cover a third of the earth’s surface and provides a number of significant economic, social and environmental values. Forests comprises 22.2% of household incomes in developing countries with the main forest products contributing to incomes being fuel wood, building poles, timber and building materials. Households use a variety of non-timber forest products that contribute to food security, welfare, medicinal needs, and cultural practices [2]. In Kenya, forests are one of the most important national assets in terms of economic, environmental, social and cultural values. It is estimated that the forest sector provides employment to over 50,000 people directly and other 300,000 indirectly and more than 530,000 households living within a radius of 5 kilometers from the forest reserves depend on forest for cultivating, grazing, fishing, fuel food, honey, herbal medicine, water and other benefits [3]
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