By Wangari Maathai (*)

NAIROBI, May (IPS) - The future of the African continent is again
on the world’s agenda. The United Nations’ Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs), the United Kingdom’s Africa Commission, and a
multitude of citizen and civil society efforts are among
initiatives that are addressing the problems of Africa’s poorest
people.

This new focus on Africa’s development is welcome. However, the
essential role of the environment is still marginal in discussions
about poverty. While we continue to debate these initiatives,
environmental degradation, including the loss of biodiversity and
topsoil, accelerates, causing development efforts to falter.
Without better management of resources, the achievement of the
MDGs, especially the elimination of poverty, could easily remain a
dream.

My own country, Kenya, offers a good example. The forests of Mount
Kenya, on the Equator, and the Aberdare range, on the eastern edge
of the Rift Valley, are the source for hundreds of tributaries that
pour into the Tana River, Kenya’s largest. This river provides
drinking water for millions of Kenyans in the major urban centres.
The forests function as water collectors, receiving and storing
rainwater in underground reservoirs. Many sectors, including
industries, agriculture, tourism, livestock, and energy depend on
them.

Some sixty years ago, the mountains were clear cut and replaced
with monoculture plantations of pines and eucalyptus for commercial
use. To manage these plantations cheaply, the administration
introduced the shamba system, where farmers were allowed to
cultivate food crops in between tree seedlings. It was assumed,
that as the farmers tended their crops, they would also tend the
seedlings, thereby reducing the costs to the government.

Unfortunately is not always well understood that this system can
destroy the capacity of natural forests to provide critical forest
services, such as the replenishment of underground water levels,
sustaining the volume of water in rivers, providing habitats for
extensive biodiversity, and controlling rainfall patterns. After
many years of forest abuse, these services fail: biodiversity
disappears, rivers dry up, floods become common and very
destructive, soil erosion increases, land degrades, desertification
intensifies, rainfall and crop production plummets.

Small-scale farmers working degraded lands are among the poorest
people in Kenya. For them, hunger is a common phenomenon. These
conditions undermine prospects for eradicating extreme poverty and
hunger (MDG 1) and reducing child deaths (MDG 4), the roots of
which are often found in hunger and poor nutrition. At this time,
aid in the form of food, clothing, and shelter from the government
or donor agencies become needed. Under such unsettled conditions,
communities demonstrate the typical pictures of desperation and
hopelessness. Yet all this could be avoided by managing the
forested mountains more sustainably.

This year in Kenya, the long rains have been late and light,
preventing most farmers from planting their fields. Three million
people, nearly 10 per cent of the population, now depend on
government food aid. About 60 per cent of Kenya’s population is
rural, and most men and women still earn their living as farmers.

After the loss of forests, nothing remains to hold the soil back,
and massive amounts of topsoil are lost. Combined with low water
levels, large deposits of soil in dams across the Tana River have
challenged the government’s ability to generate sufficient
hydropower. As a result, Kenya has had to buy power from
neighbouring countries to expand rural electrification and
industrial development. In so doing, it sacrifices other
development priorities like combating HIV/AIDs, malaria and other
diseases (MDG 6) and improving maternal health (MDG 5).
Shortages of electricity also mean that poor people in rural and
urban areas use charcoal (from trees) for energy, furthering
deforestation and limiting prospects that MDG 7, ensuring
environmental sustainability, will be achieved.

Finally, destruction of Kenya’s forests also affects tourism, a
major source of foreign exchange. As animals’ habitats are
compromised, they search for food and water in other areas and are
often killed by poachers or people defending themselves and their
livelihoods.

The organisation I founded, the Green Belt Movement, has launched
a pilot project in partnership with the Kenyan government to
restore degraded forests and open lands with native trees and
vegetation. Local women are growing indigenous tree seedlings and
planting them in the Aberdares forest. For each seedling that
survives, the women earn about USD 0.35. This money can be used for
school uniforms, nutritious food, or health care for themselves and
their children.

Africa lags behind other regions in progress toward the MDGs. If we
do not acknowledge that the environment is central to sustainable
development and ending poverty, we run the risk of missing all the
MDGs and further degrading the resource base on which future
development depends.

For Africa it is necessary not to forego the promise to future
generations. To make poverty history, we have to put the
environment at the centre of policy and decision-making. That is
what will make the difference.(END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

(*) Wangari Maathai, the 2004 Nobel Peace Laureate, is Kenya’s
Assistant Minister for Environment and Member of Parliament.