KENYA: 100,000 trees will be planted to restore the Mwache River basin
About five months after the start of the Mwache Multipurpose Dam project in Kenya, the government is launching an initiative to restore the river basin. It aims in particular to plant 100,000 trees to secure this watercourse.
While the Mwache multipurpose dam is gradually rising in the village of Fulugani in Kenya, the government wants to immediately restore the basin of this watercourse, particularly in the buffer zone of the future water reservoir which will will cover an area of 250,000 hectares, with an 87.5 m high concrete gravity dike. This is what justifies the launch of the project to plant 100,000 trees in the Mwache River watershed on September 22, 2023.
The Kenyan Ministry of Water, Sanitation and Irrigation will pilot this project which is one of the components of the Mwache water supply project. The project also aims to provide equitable and sustainable access to water, and build resilience to climate change in communities living around Mwache and its surrounding areas.
For the record, the dam lake that will form should contain 118 million m3 of water. The water stored by the structure will be pumped for irrigation of 2,600 hectares of land in Kwale County. The water from the Mwache dam will also be treated to supply the populations through a plant with a capacity of 186,000 m3 per day.
At the launch of the 100,000 tree planting campaign, Kenyan Minister of Water, Sanitation and Irrigation Ephantus Kimotho stressed that it was " a collective effort that requires a whole-of-government and social .
Also, each resident of Mwache was invited to plant a minimum of 30 trees in order to ensure the success of this reforestation campaign. In addition to restoring the Mwache River watershed, the initiative will improve people's livelihoods and create jobs. “ In the long term, 450,000 trees will be planted in this watershed through a coastal water security project ,” says the Kenyan Ministry of Water.
