Cutting down (some of) Kenya’s eucalypts

You may remember I threw a bit of a hissy fit some time back when my mother-in-law was forced to cut down some of her eucalypt plantation as part of a Kenyan government effort to combat the drought that was plaguing the country (it has since broken in a big way, causing much flooding in places). Well, I was there at Christmas and saw the result for myself, and what really got me was not so much what she was forced to do, but the fact that the order is not being not uniformly applied. Have a look.

gums

Now, a year ago I would not have been able to take that picture because of the thick stand of blue gums I would have been standing in. Gone now, of course, though some are beginning to re-sprout. But the question is: why weren’t the big-shot owners of the huge tea farm on the other side of the valley forced to cut down their eucalypts? They’re even closer to the stream than ours were.

Anyway, some good did come out of all this. More on that later.

Nibbles: Forests, Climate change, Campaign, Water chestnuts, Research, Fruit

Oxfam goes to town on the Other Green Revolution

We’ve blogged briefly about how vast areas of the Sahel, far from degenerating, are actually experiencing something of an agricultural rebirth, thanks in some small measure to tree-planting. ((Skeptics may point to rainfall cycles; I’m not sure it matters.)) A post from Oxfam America summarizes some of those efforts, and explains that Oxfam brought some of the people responsible — elevated to eco-hero status — to Washington DC “for discussions with US legislators about local solutions to food insecurity and climate change.” We haven’t noticed any reports of those discussions, but are happy to draw attention to the high impact of local solutions to local problems, especially when they make use of agricultural biodiversity. Thanks to CAS-IP, which has an expanded gloss on Oxfam’s efforts.