Zipporah Matumbi

Meru Forest Environment Conservation and Protection Association (MEFECAP) – Upper Imenti Forest, Kenya

She now lives adjacent to the Upper Imenti Forest, part of the Mt Kenya forest ecosystem. As an adult, she noticed that with extensive logging, the forest was disappearing. Deforestation was affecting rainfall, and local women were particularly affected by this since they have to go long distances looking for water. So she gathered a group of women to start tree nurseries, using their own time and money, to save the forest around them and make a difference.

Then in 2000, she became involved in the drafting of the national Forest Bill, which sought to enshrine community participation in forest management. “It helped me to understand that the forest belongs to us communities, and that we have to protect it,” she says.

During that time, she has noticed that many forests struggle to grow indigenous trees because of a colonizing shrub introduced from the American tropics called lantana camara. Lantana camara has beautiful flowers, but this adaptable plant is highly invasive and causes problems in many tropical countries, crowding out the original flora and even increasing fire risk in dry forests.

Matumbi became part of the Tree Establishment for Livelihood Improvement Scheme, a system that plants indigenous trees for conservation in degraded forest areas. Although similar in name, it is different from Plantations Establishment for Livelihood Improvement Scheme which is about establishing plantations of exotic trees.

Matumbi has helped raise funds for forest conservation and community livelihood support from several organizations, including Farm Africa, European/UP-TANA, UNDP, Government of Kenya. She supports land restoration initiatives and is involved in several community training programs for natural resources management and forest protection. She helped establish 18 CFAs (Community Forest Associations with 11 in Meru county) with a total of approximately 27,000 members.

“We wanted our children to be able to grow up in a healthy environment. We had seen how the river flows had started to be low and we wanted to bring the water back by taking out the eucalyptus which consume a lot of water and replacing it with bamboo native to Africa.”

Website: Kenyan women fight invasive species by planting indigenous trees

Video 1) Zipporah Matumbi talks about forest restoration in Kenya Video 2) Voices of the Landscape Plenary