“If you destroy the forest then the river will stop flowing, the rains will become irregular, the crops will fail and you will die of hunger and starvation.” – Wangari Maathai
Tree Planting
Imgsrc: http://takingrootfilm.com/press-kit/
The biggest focus of the Green Belt Movement was its tree-planting campaign. The loss of forestation in Kenya was affecting the livelihood of the communities and also causing many valuable lands to go to waste. Hence the tree-planting campaigns would reap the following benefits for the people living in the rural areas.
- Forestation and reforestation
- Sustainable source of wood fuel
- Increasing biodiversity in the forests
- Increasing food security
- Generating income for women
- Curbing soil erosion
Water Harvesting
Imgsrc: http://www.greenbeltmovement.org/node/544
Water harvesting is used as a farming technique and also a way to increase water supply for households by creating reservoirs to hold water.
A watershed is an area of land that allows water to drain to a common point. When rain falls into these watershed, they will flow into the same water sources such as a lake or a river. However, the quality, quantity and consistency of the water flow will depend on the tree cover within the watershed. The trees would help to regulate the flow of the water by ways such as decreasing storm water runoff so that it can permeate into the soil and loosen it and increase its permeability, decreasing the amount of pollutants reaching the water bodies and storing the rainfall in the canopies.
The watershed approach creates communities of water, allowing the communities to take on the responsibilities to enable and sustain their watersheds to ensure a clean supply of water.