{"id":5689,"date":"2019-10-02T09:06:50","date_gmt":"2019-10-02T06:06:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africasustainabilitymatters.com\/?p=5689"},"modified":"2026-01-11T05:30:34","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T05:30:34","slug":"kenyan-farmers-mix-tradition-with-tech-to-protect-drying-mara-river","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/2019\/10\/02\/kenyan-farmers-mix-tradition-with-tech-to-protect-drying-mara-river\/","title":{"rendered":"Kenyan Farmers Mix Tradition With Tech To Protect Drying Mara River"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Kagondu Njagi<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyone\nhearing the loud singing coming from Isaac Chereger’s farm would be forgiven\nfor thinking it was a particularly enthusiastic church gathering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead,\nit was a group of women calling to order a meeting of a local religious charity\nthat teaches villagers how to conserve the forest around their homes in this\nsouthwestern Kenya community, to help stop the Mara River from drying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For\nmore than a decade, environmental groups have raised the alarm over the Mara\nRiver, warning that population growth, illegal logging and overuse of its\nwaters by communities struggling through drought have caused a dramatic drop in\nthe river’s water levels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At\nthe meeting on Chereger’s farm, some villagers volunteered to plant saplings\nwhere their fields meet the river, while others agreed to get training on why\nthe unplanned felling of trees along the river could worsen the impact of\ndrought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chereger\ntold the Thomson Reuters Foundation he is proud of the conservation work his\ncommunity does, but has long wondered if it was enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That’s\nwhy the Empowering Lives International Centre – which put on the meeting on his\nfarm – has joined other local organizations in an effort to give their\ntraditional conservation work some technological muscle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\npilot scheme run by the Stockholm Environment Institute, an international\nresearch organization, trains villagers to use a water evaluation and planning\n(WEAP) tool that generates a digital forecast on the health of a water source.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When\ncommunities know what to expect from the Mara River’s changing water levels,\nthey can more quickly adapt and find the most effective ways to slow the drying\nof the river, the institute’s researchers say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\ngroup in Ilula village say they are keen to add the system to their\nconservation toolbelt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The\nMara River gives us pasture and water for our cattle. If this innovation can\nhelp in preventing bad use of the river, then we are ready to work with\nit,” said Chereger\u2026Read more>><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Kagondu Njagi Anyone hearing the loud singing coming from Isaac Chereger’s farm would be forgiven for thinking it was a particularly enthusiastic church gathering. Instead, it was a group of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5690,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5689\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}