The long rains, from March through May, were plentiful in Kenya this year, following two years of calamitous drought across much of East Africa. The fields and forests are lush on the drive from Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, towards snow-capped Mount Kenya, about 150 km to the north-east. Along the road, well-stocked vendors sell tomatoes and oranges, and children walk to school in their crisp uniforms, joking and rough-housing along the way.
For the past seven years, the Mount Kenya East Pilot Project (MKEPP), an ambitious rural renewal initiative, has been operating here in the shadow of Africa's second highest peak after Kilimanjaro. Of course, MKEPP can't take credit for the recent rains or the bounty they bring. But it has succeeded in reversing environmental decline in a sizeable portion of the Mount Kenya watershed. And it has enabled small-scale farmers and their families to build a better, more stable life.
...