•The Kaptagat forest is deep within Elgeyo Marakwet County and acts as a good high-altitude training site for local and foreign elite athletes.
•Some of the athletes who have trained in the forest have become world champions and earned the forest even bigger accolades.
Image: WWF-KENYA
President William Ruto will on Saturday preside over a tree-growing campaign at Kessup Forest Block, Elgeyo Marakwet County.
The head of state will lead the exercise during the Seventh Edition of the Kaptagat Tree Growing initiative, a move aimed at accelerating the attainment of the 30 per cent tree cover.
Durin the tree planting drive, over 32,000 seedlings are set to be grown.
On Friday, the National Environment Trust Fund lauded the over 30 corporate partners who will join the drive.
“The value of our corporate partners joining us for the 7th Edition of the Kaptagat Tree Growing initiative cannot be emphasized enough. It is an extraordinary collaboration between NETFUND Kenya and all the partners on board towards accelerating the attainment of the 30 per cent tree cover.”
“We are honoured to announce that H.E President Dr William Ruto will grace the event tomorrow, Saturday, July 1st, 2023, at Kessup Forest Block, Elgeyo Marakwet County. Together, we are making a significant impact in fostering ecosystem restoration,” NETFUND said.
The state intends to plant 15 billion trees in the next 10 years at a cost of Sh600 billion.
This means that each year, the budget is approximately Sh60 billion.
The 15 billion tree campaign translates to 30 trees per Kenyan per year over the next 10 years.
The state hopes that by 2032, the country’s tree cover will have hit 30 per cent from the current 12.13 per cent.
The forest cover increased from 5.9 per cent in 2018 to 8.83 per cent in 2021, while the national tree cover stands at 12.13 per cent above the constitutional target of 10 per cent.
Results generated from the National Forest Resources Assessment 2021 show that the country has 5,226,191.79ha of national forest cover, which represents 8.83 per cent of the total area.
In addition, results reveal that the country has a tree cover per capita index of 1,507.48m2 per person.
The report shows the distribution of forests and tree cover across the 47 counties.
According to the assessment, 37 counties out of 47 (79 per cent) have a tree cover percentage greater than the constitutional set target of 10 per cent tree cover.
The Kaptagat forest is deep within Elgeyo Marakwet County and acts as a good high-altitude training site for local and foreign elite athletes.
Some of the athletes who have trained in the forest have become world champions and earned the forest even bigger accolades.
Kaptagat Forest is a unique ecosystem where people, nature, and the economy interconnect and its conservation remains critical.
During the sixth edition of the tree planting drive last year, over 250,000 mixed tree seedlings were planted to rehabilitate Kaptagat, Penon, Sabor, Kessup and Kipkabus forest stations in the latest efforts to restore the water tower.
In 2019, Marathon champion Eliud Kipchoge signed an MoU with Kenya Forest Service (KFS) to adopt 50.8 hectares of Kaptagat forest.
The MoU would see him rehabilitate and restore the degraded water tower and later establish a training track and ecotourism site.
The forest has sections with exotic trees such as Cypress, Eucalyptus and Pines planted mainly to help the government generate revenue.
It also boasts of blossoming sections of indigenous trees whose main aim is to protect the water tower for the current and future generations.
The World Wide Fund-Kenya through the UK-Pact, Trillion Trees and WWF-UK has since donated Sh8,940,000 million to the Eliud Kipchoge Foundation to facilitate the fencing and restoration of his adopted 50.8 hectares.
Apart from supporting the athletes and offering a wide range of environmental benefits to the people, the forest also has rivers that include Kipsinende, Kapkei, Naiberi and Eldoret streams that join river Sosiani and drain into Lake Victoria.
Kenya Forest Service says Kaptagat is one of the forests in the North Rift conservation area that covers a total of 5,663.56 hectares.
The Kaptagat forest ecosystem initially hosted huge areas of bamboo.
Kaptagat is derived from the Kalenjn word 'tegat' which means bamboo in the local dialect.
It is for this reason that authorities, led by the Environment Ministry and Kenya Water Towers Agency, have set up a national bamboo demonstration site within a section of the forest.
Community Forest Associations composed of locals adjacent to the resource and registered under the Society's Act are supposed to reap benefits from the forest resource.
Forest Conservation and Management Act 2016 allow user rights for community forest association.
Such rights include water resources, herbs, firewood, research and education, cultural benefits, beekeeping, and plantation establishment livelihood improvement system.
The Community Forest Association may also establish ecotourism activities.