Kennedy Senelwa
10 October 2008
Nairobi — Planting of trees to rehabilitate the Mau Forest will start early next year.
This will be carried out in a joint project of the United Nations and Kenyan Government.
The United Nations Environment Programme (Unep) said restoration of the forest would involve re-establishment of plantations and promotion of natural regeneration.
Unep's executive director Achim Steiner said restoration of degraded ecosystems of Mau Forest in Kenya and Lake Faguibine in Mali were country projects to be undertaken jointly with respective governments.
He said the two were part of large-scale projects to rehabilitate nature-based assets in five countries before the Convention on Biological Diversity meeting to be held in 2010 in Nagoya, Japan.
Trees in Mau Forest have been cut down while Lake Faguibine is has been almost dry since the 1970s.
In a press statement, Mr Steiner said: "In a climate-constrained world, these nature-based assets and services they provide will become more central to an economy's ability to thrive and survive."
He said Mau was the largest closed-canopy forest in Kenya.
It generates goods and services worth more than Sh20 billion annually for tea, tourism and hydro-power sectors.
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