By Silvester Mkamaganga, Forester at Wildlife Works Carbon 13 November 2010
TREE SEEDLINGS PURCHASE INTRODUCTION
The Kasigau Corridor REDD project has now created an economic incentive for the landowners and communities within the corridor to protect their forest. Wildlife Works will be working with the landowners and local communities to implement forest management plans that exclude the destructive use of forest resources. In that local communities are encouraged to raise indigenous tree seedlings in their own home made nursery in different containers and will be purchased by Wildlife Works for nurturing them to the right size then they will be taken back to the communities to be planted to the degraded land, for the purpose of increase tree cover which will help to reduce forest degradation.
OBJECTIVES
The objective is to purchase indigenous tree seedlings from the community farmers in which they have propagated and raise them in different containers to be taken to the nursery for nurturing them to the right size for planting program in their areas.
PURCHASING
The purchasing of the tree seedlings commenced at Marasi area where we concentrated on the first day and purchased 6,149 tree seedlings. The other days we moved to other areas including Marungu, Bondeni, Chamani, Rukanga, Bungule, Kajire and Talio. We covered Marungu Hill Mount Kasigau and Lower Sagalla Hill. The species mix we collected include Acacia nilotica, Acacia robusta, Acacia mellifera, Balanite aegyptica, Lannea, Commifora Africana, Delanox elata and other indigenous species, In total we managed to purchase 29,043 tree seedlings. The strategy we used in seedling purchase we were moving to points of collection which were close to the road. The farmers who had tree seedlings far from the collection points, had to transport them to the nearest collection point, due to bad roads and bad terrain. It was also our mandate to assess the tree seedlings if they were ready to be purchased and transported to our tree nursery in Maungu.
DISCUSSIONS
This time we got a huge purchase compared to the previous ones. The highest seller emerged to Mr Mliwa with 3, 986 tree seedlings and the lowest was Mr Mwangere with 5 tree seedlings. The ones with the lowest seedlings could due to dry spell which killed most of the seedlings.
The activity went on well although there were some challenges here and there. These challenges included:
I. Under budgeting and the nursery owners had high expectation of high sales and hence we had to apologize for the inconveniences.
II. Some of the tree seedlings were not ready for purchasing and some of the owners were trying to force, but we had to leave them because most of them could die on the way to the nursery and hence we would have incurred a lot of loss on our side.
III. Some roads were in very bad condition, we had to find ways of reaching the purchasing points.
IV. The duration set for collection and purchases of different areas were very short compared to the work on the ground, hence we had to extend the duration in some areas and this affected a lot on the time and energy input to the communities and they complained a lot.
We did apologize for the inconveniences we caused.
CONCLUSION
Tree seedling purchase to the community it is an important part of the Carbon project so we have to reduce as many challenges as possible to smoothen this activity. We propose that there should be some survey prior to planning and budgeting is done. We should also discourage disinformation and encourage the local communities to come for the right information from our offices. We should also set specific collection points which are practical for us and allow the more isolated areas in the Project Zone to benefit from the cash flow it brings.
The summary of the tree seedling purchase
Mr Clinton Mliwa our highest tree supplier with his son on their tree seedling stock at Marasi area with 3,986 seedlings purchased.
SupplierLocalityTotal tree seedlingsPer supplier1.W.MwikambaMarasi16722.C.MliwaMarasi39863.P.JohnMarasi2164.E.MwandighaMarasi2755.N.MswahiliMarasi1876.G.MswahiliMarasi1407.J.KitatuMarasi4088.N.MakutoMarasi2709.F.NdengeMarasi1010.A.MswahiliMarasi11611.H.JohnMarasi17912.G.ChaoMarasi3613.J.NgatiMarasi12614.E.KanyekiMarasi28715.Kulii NdileMarasi78816.Ngonyo BoniBondeni46217.M.Ng’endoBondeni116518.C.MwakitauMarungu3819.C.AliMarungu5520.W.MwakinaMarungu132521.F.MwadimeMarungu8922.F.MwakinaMarungu16023.L.MwakinaMarungu51324.H.MwakioMarungu1025.Kalaghe MMarungu10326.M.BarakaMarungu15627.B.MwanyikaMarungu1528.MwandoeMarungu23829.N.ObareMarungu3630.G.MuruMarungu6331.P.OnyangoMarungu40032.T.ShauriMarungu71733.C.NgongeMarungu26234.J.MrundeRukanga27835.M.MachochoRukanga15536.J.ZingiriRukanga17337.N.ChaoRukanga14038.P.HannahRukanga3439.P.WawudaRukanga4240.M.MalembaRukanga12141.J.MuasyaRukanga255042.S.MuthiniRukanga76243.J.KabayaRukanga25244.C.MwasingoRukanga5845.M.MchawiaRukanga11346.E.MterengoRukanga8647.E.MwakaiRukanga2248.H.PaulRukanga66149.N.NyiroRukanga53150.E.NyambuRukanga52251.J.NyambuRukanga90452.F.NjegheRukanga6553.P.MwangandaRukanga7354.N.KatuuRukanga5755.D.SilasRukanga6056.Eu.NyambuRukanga5457.M.MwandangoRukanga100858.P.MwazauleRukanga2859.R.NgaliBungule55260.F.MwamvulaBungule174061.R.WaliBungule9962.M.MzeeBungule2063.J.MwikambaBungule1764.L.KimaniBungule15165.E.MichaelBungule13066.C.MwaludaBungule4467.M.BambanyaBungule2068.S.KilongoziBungule12169.L.MwachiaBungule25470.M.MwangejeBungule3771.F.NjemuBungule46372.S.MakengaBungule9273.M.MshaiBungule1974.T.MwangereBungule575.I.MzeeBungule10076.D.MichaelBungule3177.A.MdawidaBungule33578.N.MwamvulaBungule15079.M.MotiboKajire25180.S.MwambelaKajire3081.J.MwakimaKajire21082.M.MwambonuKajire16083.G.TaluTalio20684.E.MkamburiTalio46385.J.PeluTalio5686.G.MwacharoTalio35TOTALS29043
