Restoration of the ecological integrity of the South Marmanet Forest for enhanced community resilience to climate change in Laikipia County, Kenya

The project proposes a USD 10 million grant from the Green Climate Fund to restore 2,000 hectares of the South Marmanet Forest Reserve. The initiative focuses on three main components: improving forest governance through the Participatory Forest Management approach, implementing reforestation and afforestation activities, and diversifying community livelihoods through climate-adaptive technologies. The project aims to benefit 75,000 direct beneficiaries and 1.4 million indirect beneficiaries by stabilizing the flow of the Ewaso Ng’iro River and sequestering an estimated 18 million tonnes of carbon by 2050.

• The project aims to rehabilitate 2,000 hectares of the South Marmanet Forest Reserve, which is a critical catchment for the Ewaso Ng’iro river serving 1.4 million people across seven counties: Laikipia, Meru, Samburu, Isiolo, Wajir, Marsabit, and Garissa.
• The project expects to sequester 600,000 tonnes of carbon per year once the canopy interlocks, with a total estimated sequestration of over 18 million tonnes of carbon by the year 2050.
• The initiative will utilize a Participatory Forest Management (PFM) approach, involving Community Forest Associations (CFAs) to manage user rights and provide forest scouting, a model previously piloted in Gathioro forest in Nyeri County.
• The project includes a comprehensive livelihood diversification component to reduce community dependence on forest fuel wood, featuring the installation of fish and crop greenhouses, poultry farming, bee hives, dairy goat farming, and biogas units.
• The total indicative project cost is USD 10 million, requested as a grant from the Green Climate Fund, with funding split across forest governance (USD 1.5M), reforestation (USD 4M), sustainable livelihoods (USD 4M), and project management (USD 0.5M).
• The project is implemented through a partnership between the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) as the Accredited Entity, the Kenya Forest Service (KFS) for technical supervision, and Safaricom PLC, which will provide communication infrastructure and technology such as drones and the DigiFarm e-platform.

APA

Green Climate Fund (2019). Restoration of the ecological integrity of the South Marmanet Forest for enhanced community resilience to climate change in Laikipia County, Kenya. https://www.greenclimate.fund/sites/default/files/document/21280-restoration-ecological-integrity-south-marmanet-forest-enhanced-community-resilience-climate.pdf

Chicago

Green Climate Fund. Restoration of the ecological integrity of the South Marmanet Forest for enhanced community resilience to climate change in Laikipia County, Kenya. 2019. https://www.greenclimate.fund/sites/default/files/document/21280-restoration-ecological-integrity-south-marmanet-forest-enhanced-community-resilience-climate.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Green Climate Fund |title=Restoration of the ecological integrity of the South Marmanet Forest for enhanced community resilience to climate change in Laikipia County, Kenya |date=1 April 2019 |url=https://www.greenclimate.fund/sites/default/files/document/21280-restoration-ecological-integrity-south-marmanet-forest-enhanced-community-resilience-climate.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{greenclimatefund2019restoration, author = {{Green Climate Fund}}, title = {{Restoration of the ecological integrity of the South Marmanet Forest for enhanced community resilience to climate change in Laikipia County, Kenya}}, institution = {Green Climate Fund}, year = {2019}, month = apr, url = {https://www.greenclimate.fund/sites/default/files/document/21280-restoration-ecological-integrity-south-marmanet-forest-enhanced-community-resilience-climate.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }