WHY NAROK COUNTY IS WORLD BANK PREFERED INVESTMENT DESTINATION

Narok County could become one of the richest in the country if it prudently exploits its natural forest resources, experts say. Prof Richard Samson Odingo of the University of Nairobi’s Geography Department says Narok is endowed with the Mau Forest from where it can earn billions of shillings in carbon credits .Narok shares part of the Mau Complex, which is the largest indigenous forest in East Africa. The complex covers 273,300 hectares, forming the region’s single-most largest closed canopy forest.

“The potential is enormous because Narok could earn a lot of revenue from the forest in the form of carbon credits,” says Odingo, chairman of the panel overseeing Government activity on climate change – the National Climate Change Activities Coordination Committee (NCCACC).He adds: “The income could be huge, even amounting to tens of billions of shillings per year due to the size of the resource.” A carbon credit represents one ton of carbon dioxide equivalent either removed, avoided or sequestered. These are then exchanged in the carbon market.

The carbon market is divided into two - the voluntary markets and the regulatory (compliance) market. In the compliance market, carbon credits are generated by projects that operate under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) approved mechanisms such as Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). 

Credits generated under this mechanism are known as Certified Emissions Reduction (CERs). In the voluntary market (where Mau Forest could belong) carbon credits are generated by projects accredited to independent international standards such as the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS). These credits are known as Verified Emission Reductions (VERs).

Mau Forest

 

Carbon trade exchange supports the trading of both voluntary and compliance credits. The idea behind carbon trading is similar to the trading of securities or commodities in a marketplace. Carbon would be given a value, allowing people, companies or nations to trade in it. For instance, if a nation bought carbon, it would be buying the rights to burn it, and a nation selling carbon would be giving up its rights to burn it.

The value of the carbon would be based on the ability of the country, entity or individual owning the carbon to store or to prevent it from being released into the atmosphere. The better they are at storing it, the more they can charge for it.

A market would then be created to facilitate the buying and selling of the rights to emit greenhouse gases. Industrialized countries such as the United States and China, for which reducing emissions is a daunting task, could buy emission rights from the carbon market.

The huge earnings, Odingo explains, would be as a result of the fact that Mau Forest acts as a huge carbon sink. The forest’s closed tree-canopy removes tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through the process of photosynthesis, thereby negating climate change. “Usually, the carbon credits are calculated per tree, but Mau Forest’s earnings would be based on the fact that the forest acts as a carbon sink, which  would  potentially  lead  to  significantly higher carbon credit earnings,” says Odingo, who for 20 years has been a bureau member for United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). 

 He, however, says the county must first conserve the resource and ensure it is sustainably managed before the money can start rolling in. “The county management must also learn, understand and conceptualise the idea of carbon credit before it can begin to earn big from its natural resources. Much as the literature about the carbon credit opportunities is out there, few people, especially at the county level, grasp the idea. There is need for civic education in the devolved systems not only on the  benefits  of  forests  but  the whole idea of climate change and environment conservation,” Odingo says. He adds: “Importantly, the counties must ensure the resource is exploited sustainably both to conserve the heritage and to keep the money flowing.”

As Kenya’s Nobel Laureate the late Prof Wangari Maathai put it: “In today’s world, conserving the environment is not all about self-preservation but also about earning money from countries that contribute significantly to climate change.”

Estimates show that by exploiting opportunities in the carbon market through planting trees and conserving forests, Kenya could earn Sh30 billion annually, while the continent could rake in some Sh200 billion.

The Sh30 billion is equivalent to the money the government is borrowing from external sources to preserve the Mau Forest. Although the county’s forest cover has largely been depleted from more than 10 per cent in the 1960s to about 1.7 per cent currently, preserving the remaining forest cover could amount to a green gold mine.

In 2009, Kenya was picked alongside 14 other  developing  countries  to  benefit  from an innovative programme to combat tropical deforestation and forest depletion, where the  country  signed  her  first  carbon  deal  to reduce emissions into the atmosphere.

The deal signed by the San Francisco-based Wildlife Works Carbon and Kenya Forest Service (KFS), compels the partners to protect the 80,000acre Rukinga Forest Reserve in south-eastern Kenya. The project is funded by sales of carbon credits in the voluntary carbon market. The development makes Kenya one of the 14 countries to receive funds in the first round of World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF).

Besides trading in carbon credits, the Mau can also be an ecological zone and a tourist attraction owing  to  its  diverse  flora  and fauna.

Typical tree species in Mau Forest include

Pouteria adofi-friedericii, Strombosia scgeffleri and Polyscias kikuyuensis, Olea capensis,Prunus Africana, Albizia gummifera and

Podocarpus latifolius.

Endemic bird species in the area include

Hartlaub’s Turaco (Tauraco hartlaubi), Hunter’s Cisticola and Jackson’s Francolin. However, in order to enjoy carbon benefits from the Mau Forest, Narok and adjacent counties must sort out the mess in Mau first.

Late last year, the Government announced that the rehabilitation of the Mau Forest would not be completed due to lack of funds. KFS Assistant Director David Chege says the Sh250 million set aside for the project will be finished this year, adding that more than 200 hectares of trees have been planted so far.

He is urging donors to donate funds to support the project. In 2008, a political row erupted over resettlement of people who had been allocated land in Mau Forest during the Kanu era, especially in the 1980s and 1990s. Some of the settlers were leaders and powerful figures in the Moi regime.

The Ndungu Report identified the  allocations as illegal and recommended their revocation. Some evictions were implemented between 2004 and 2006, without a resettlement scheme. In July 2008, then Prime Minister Raila Odinga issued an order for the evictions to be implemented by October that year in order to protect the forest from destruction. The order was opposed by a number of Rift Valley politicians. Some politicians proposed that if evictions were to be implemented, the national Government should allocate the settlers alternative land.