Protecting forests

Farm Africa develops economic incentives for communities to sustainably manage and protect forests. We help them replace traditional tree-cutting and wood and charcoal selling with forest-friendly businesses, like wild coffee harvesting, beekeeping and spice production.

Farm Africa has helped to develop new and valuable markets for these products. Business training is helping community groups formalise into cooperatives, develop business plans, obtain quality certifications and access markets.

We’ve been developing our approach to participatory forest management (PFM) for more than 20 years. It is a form of forest management that relies on formalised agreements between local communities and government. These agreements set out management responsibilities and arrangements for all people making a living from the forest, and ensure that its benefits are shared equally.

The hallmark of our PFM approach is a focus on giving local people an economic incentive to sustainably manage and protect forests. In return for protecting precious biodiversity, communities are allowed to extract resources from the forest in a sustainable way.

Firewood collection and tree felling for timber are major drivers of deforestation. Farm Africa supports communities to find more sustainable ways to meet their fuel and timber needs.

We’re working with farmers to trial biogas as an alternative fuel source, converting animal manure to provide fuel that provides a cleaner, more efficient way of cooking and can power lights too.

We help communities to produce and sell fuel-efficient cooking stoves that can reduce household firewood consumption by as much as 50%. The stoves also free up time spent collecting firewood for other activities, and improve families’ health by reducing their exposure to smoke.

We also encourage people to plant wood lots on their farmland. By densely planting fast-growing tree species near to their home, people become less reliant on the forest for fuelwood. They can also realise a financial return by selling the matured trees for timber or fuel.

Dwindling harvests are a major driver of deforestation, with farmers clearing forest to access fertile soil. We help ease the pressure by offering training in climate-smart agriculture, which increases crop productivity on existing plots while maintaining soil fertility.

With prolonged droughts and increased livestock numbers, reliance on open grazing has become unsustainable. To ease grazing encroachment into the forest, we work with communities to develop rangeland management solutions and provide training in animal fodder production.

Trees play an important role in erosion and flood protection, drought resilience and soil fertility. Across our projects, training in agroforestry is helping farmers appreciate these ecosystem services, and also the economic value trees can provide by producing fruit, fuelwood, timber and coffee. This is leading to increased planting of trees alongside crops or on cleared farmland.

Training in biodiversity monitoring is helping communities quantify the ecosystem services their forest stewardship or tree planting is providing, enabling them to benefit from schemes such as carbon credits.

Over 154,000 smallholder farmers in Embu and Tharaka-Nithi counties in Kenya are now able to earn additional income by planting and growing certain trees on their farms, as part of Farm Africa’s regenerative agriculture project funded by AGRA.

Although forest communities face many similar challenges, each also faces challenges unique to its locality.

We work in close partnership with local communities to design and deliver highly bespoke programmes which bring life-changing impact.