How will climate change affect holidays in Kenya?

Deforestation is a significant problem in Kenya. Causes range from overgrazing to charcoal-burning, logging and mining, and the expansion of human settlements. Without tree roots, quality topsoil can be easily washed away, leading to landslides.

One Horizon Africa supports several biogas projects, such as converting cow manure to organic fertiliser, which Colin points out also reduces the need for women to go out and cut down trees for firewood. “The Kenyan government says, ‘you mustn’t cut trees because of climate change, because of biodiversity, because of the ill health it causes burning wood in the house.’ But it still goes on, just at night, and that has risks. The more trees they cut down, the further they must go to forage firewood. Someone in this area was gored by a buffalo recently.”

I also spoke to Lucy Booth, whose company Kenya Treks specialises in walks on Mount Kenya, and her head guide, John Karumba. Like most of the porters Kenya Treks hires, John comes from the Kikuyu tribe, who live on Mount Kenya’s southern and western flanks. “Deforestation is an issue in Mount Kenya National Park, yes,” says John. “The Kenya Wildlife Service is trying to stop people from burning. And our community is planting trees. We’re varying what we grow too, looking for drought tolerant crops. Now many people are growing avocados as they don’t need much water, compared to coffee and tea.”

Avocados are a water-intensive crop, requiring 70 litres of water for a single fruit, with western diets dictating global farming patterns. But coffee is much worse – the United Nations estimates that it can take 140 litres of water to grow, process, and transport enough beans for just one cup of coffee.

One Horizon Africa is aiming to plant 10,000 trees to help combat erosion. Local people earn through digging the holes, then travellers plant drought-resistant trees and water them – some returning year after year to see the progress. But Colin Murray admits that just planting more trees is not a solution in itself: “If we truly want to solve deforestation then we’ve got to solve jobs and poverty. You can ban people from cutting down trees for charcoal or grazing pasture but what is their alternative? If you don’t fix the underlying problem, then deforestation will just go on.”

“There’s still a day-to-day mindset in some parts of Kenya,” says Tom Kearney. “People are more concerned with what’s going to happen in the next days, weeks, and months, so planning for something they’ve been told will affect them in future doesn’t necessarily come naturally. We need to be mindful that many people are more worried with where their next meal is coming from than the climate changing.” But with the climate crisis is well underway, many Kenyan people do recognise the challenge, and are not sitting still.

Coping with an unprecedentedly long drought across the Horn of Africa that has killed thousands of animals and left millions of people reliant on humanitarian relief, Kenya is taking a leading role in dealing with it. One example is the development of a County Climate Change Fund that helps vulnerable communities to access finance for adaptation projects. A pastoral community, for instance, can gain funds to dig a borehole, so that herds don’t need to travel long distances to find water. “They are very economical in their use of water in Kenya,” says Colin Murray. “The tanks they use are really big as people are reliant on natural rainfall. They are used to waiting for it to rain.”

Lucy Booth sees a mixed picture on Mount Kenya. “Obviously the glaciers are retreating, and they weren’t very big in the first place. I’d imagine in twenty to thirty years they may well be gone. Like everywhere else in the world I suspect it’s too late to rescue them. But Mount Kenya has its own microclimate, its own ecosystem, and that’s functioning pretty well still. The mountain is effectively a water tower for thousands of people, and the rivers still fill up in rainy season, and agriculture can go on. So the communities here are very lucky in that respect.”

Kenya has also joined the International Fund for Animal Welfare’s (IFAW) Room to Roam initiative, which links habitat corridors across international borders so that elephants threatened by climate change can safely reach food, water and shelter.

The country has also embarked on an ambitious forest restoration project. Currently, Kenya has just eight percent forest cover, dramatically less than the global average of 30 percent. By planting five million trees by 2030 it aims to reach a minimum of 10 percent. That may seem an ambitious target, but many projects, such as one in Mount Kenya National Park, are already well underway. The Eden Project alone has 26 tree-planting projects across Kenya in places such as the Kijabe Forest that are helping to restore waterways and create wildlife habitats.

Safari operators and camps are moving to renewable energy sources, as well as gradually introducing electric vehicles. Obviously, the carbon footprint of safari jeeps in Africa is nothing compared to transport emissions in Europe and North America. But electric jeeps have another benefit beyond the fact that they don’t belch poisonous fumes out across the landscape. They’re much quieter than regular diesel engines, which means less disturbance for animals and, hopefully, a lot more breeding going on. The Great Migration is not doomed yet.

Find out more about how you can reduce your holiday’s carbon emissions