Tudor creek, a mangrove haven based off the Kenyan coast, where Mombasa Island splits off from the mainland, is under severe threat of degradation.
It once teemed with wildlife, from monitor lizards to vervet monkeys, and was home to eight different mangrove tree species, which include the red mangrove, spurred mangrove and white mangrove.
However, more than 1,850ha of mangrove forest at Tudor Creek has been destroyed by mainly anthropogenic activities.
Surrounding neighbourhoods release affluent into the ecosystem, while people cut down the mangroves to make charcoal.
“Also, some people use the mangrove forests as cover for the illegal brewing of chang’aa, further destroying the mangrove forest,” Mombasa deputy county commissioner Ronald Mwiwawi said on Saturday.
He spoke after leading a group of 300 Taita Taveta Wungara Forum members in planting 300 trees at the creek at Tudor Beach.
Wungara is a Taita word meaning ‘bringing together’.
Mwiwawi said the creek is also reeling under attempts by unscrupulous and greedy people to reclaim parts of the sea to put up makeshift residential structures for a quick buck.
“That is why we are sensitising people on the importance of environmental conservation,” he said.
“Studies show that mangroves are the only trees that can clean the atmosphere better than any other tree.”
The trees are also fast-growing, the official said.
About 30 per cent of the creek has been destroyed and this will need restoration soon, he said.
Mvita subcounty has set itself a target of planting 500,000 trees towards President William Ruro’s target of 15 billion trees by 2027 across the country.
It has planted 130,000 trees so far.
Mwiwawi called on investors, sponsors and other stakeholders to help promote the initiative by buying seedlings for different conservation groups to be planted in different parts of Mvita subcounty and Mombasa county as a whole.
Taita Taveta Wungara Forum patron Charles Mwalimu said the forum brings together all the more than 40 welfare groups that the Taita and Taveta communities living in Mombasa have formed.
Mwalimu said the environment should be safeguarded by all and sundry, but they as the Taita and the Taveta communities should plant at least 5,000 trees in Mombasa by the end of this year.
“We ask stakeholders, including corporates, foundations and the business community, to help us achieve our target by donating seedlings to us,” he said.
TTWF vice chair Festo Msavarie said the two communities have now awakened to the environmental issues and would like to contribute to the restoration of mangrove forests in Mombasa.
“That is why we are calling for the strengthening of collaborative efforts between social welfare groups and both the national and county governments in environmental conservation,” he said.
Msavarie said were it not for their forefathers who conserved the environment, they would not have been here to enjoy it.
“It is thus our duty to preserve our environment for our future generations like our forefathers did for us,” he said.