Kenya’s PELIS trades biodiversity for livelihoods and tree cover gains

Kenya’s PELIS trades biodiversity for livelihoods and tree cover gains

KAKAMEGA, Kenya — Tropical rainforest once extended east from the Congo Basin into what is now western Kenya. That’s almost all gone now, though there are still plenty of trees to be seen around Turbo township, in Kakamega county. The township is on the edge of the Nzoia Forest Reserve, 5,000 hectares (about 12,400 acres) of monoculture blocks of alien eucalyptus and pine trees. For the past 20 years, as Kenya has wrestled with how to slow and r…