The project is currently under way and has seen thirty-eight community members trained in various areas from bee keeping - including the introduction of stingless bees (left),  honey processing and marketing - to forest tourism and forest management.

The training has also exposed the community members to Participatory Forest Management (PFM) practices looking in particular to the provisions in the Forests Act (2005) for guidelines for involvement in forest management.

In the last Newsletter we introduced readers to the Karura team of forest managers, protectors and carers, that includes FKF Forest Scouts. The majority of them has been recruited from Mji wa Huruma, the so-called 'informal settlement' on Karura's northern boundary.

It is a clear strategy of 'turning poachers into gamekeepers', since most of the Scouts grew up roaming through the forest getting up to what young people get up to. Today they take pride in being among Karura's guardians.

Since inception FKF has been trying hard to help the nearly 4,000 people of Huruma in many other ways. For example, FKF leveraged funds from the Order of Malta through UN-Habitat for a bio-filter water purification plant.

Huruma today from the forest

There was a preliminary experiment to establish a fish-farming project (the pond can be seen in the lower right-hand corner of the 2015 image below). Molly Macaire, daughter of FKF Patron Alice Macaire, and her UK school mates helped raise money to establish an Edu Club Solar Computer Lab (see last issue). And FKF has been encouraging Huruma residents to establish a grass-roots bee-keeping enterprise through ICIPE and UNDP/GEF (see above).

Honey processing plant in Huruma

It has to be admitted that some of the interventions have been less successful than others. A functioning community does not happen overnight, particularly in 'informal settlements' where people are often thrown together by hard economic circumstances rather than united through processes of historic and organic evolution.  

FKF has helped Huruma with overtures to the Ministry of Land, Housing and Urban Development to obtain allotment letters as a step to giving residents a sound legal standing. The emergence of the country's county structure has shifted the ownership of the land on which Huruma sits from the Nairobi City Council to the Nairobi County, and issuance of titles appears to have stalled.

Huruma kids enjoying the Saturday morning sun. They have access to four schools: two nursery, one primary and one secondary.

But the good news is that there are many occupants of Huruma who are working hard to establish a culture of respect and the social cohesion that is necessary for communities to function. FKF Chief Scout, John Chege, is chairman of the Ablution Block project and works closely with the Village Chairman and the ministry-appointed Chief of the northern Nairobi area that includes Karura. Other community leaders, such as Pastor Sammy Njuki and Griffin Nknoge have seats on the FKF Board along with other neighbourhood association representatives.

Huruma's future is far from certain, caught as it is between the affluent neighbourhoods of Nairobi North and the now-secured enclave of Karura Forest. It is FKF's hope that the Huruma community continues on a positively-evolving path towards equitable ownership allowing it to continue to be both a beneficiary and contributor to the new Karura.

Huruma has grown 20% since 2002                      Photo: GoogleEarth

Ever wonder why even after a poor 'short rains' in November last year and an intense dry period from December to March, the forest still looked quite good, with cool shady paths even though the temperatures in the rest of Capital soared to over 30 degrees Celsius (86F), hot for Nairobi?

The reason is the exceptionally good October 2014 rainfall -125 mm, almost twice the 70-year average for the month. See the graph, left. October is usually a variable month that marks the beginning of the twin-peaked 'rain-year'.

With a healthy canopy cover and enrichment planting of indigenous trees species constantly under way, the forest was able to capture and hold the good October rainfall and give the 2014/2015 rain-year a good kickoff.
The cumulative amount of water in the soils and the vegetation remained better than the 70-year average until the exceptionally dry February with 0 mm.

By March, we started to see the Croton leaves drooping, the result of the 100mm cumulative rain-year deficit. But then, all it took was a couple of good showers totalling 110mm in the first week of April to make up the deficit.

Let's hope the rest of April lives up to its promise.