Evolution of agricultural margins in the Kakamega Protected Forest (Kenya), 2004

01/12/2004

In western Kenya, the Kakamega forest covers 240 km2. A protected biodiversity sanctuary since 1926, it is part of several international "natural resource conservation" campaigns. On its margins lives a large agricultural population (population density between 400 and 1,300 inhabitants per km2) whose living conditions are increasingly difficult (average useful agricultural area (UAA) of 0.8 hectares). Poverty forces farmers to take illegal forest products and thus contributes to ecosystem degradation: between 1975 and 1991, the forest lost nearly 50% of its volume. The current agrarian system is the result of multiple adjustments in agricultural development methods, as a result of a [...]