Forest cover in Kenya has decreased from 20 percent to 2.4 percent in less than 100 years, and the country’s remaining forests are increasingly threatened by demands for wood fuel, charcoal, building materials and land for cultivation.
Kenya’s Wangari Maathai of the Greenbelt Movement recognized this long ago. The Nature Conservancy’s Adam Whelchel worked with the Greenbelt Movement to prioritize its tree-planting and community empowerment efforts and focus its re-plantings on the sites that would produce the greatest rewards.
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Adam Whelchel, Ph.D. is the director of conservation programs for the Connecticut Chapter of the Conservancy based in New Haven, Connecticut.
Image credit: © Adam Whelchel/TNC
