How to make ecosystem restoration work for people local economies.

The worst drought in decades is gripping eastern Africa, parching landscapes, killing livestock. The span of three years without rain. In our history, that's the most severe drought the community has ever experienced. That is when conflict arises. Globally, we are looking at more than two billion hectares of land which have been degraded. The Restoration Initiative is a nine-country project, and the key purpose of the Restoration Initiative was to transform degraded land for the people as well as for the environment. All the masses understand and know that you're not supposed to cut a tree. If you cut a tree, it's a curse to you. We live inside the forest. The communities are the ones who have been protecting it from many days ago. Ngogoda Forest entails everything that we need for livelihood. So if Ngogoda Forest is no longer, then even our lives are no longer. We live at the same place here. I think you can see our standard family. So we just concurrently work together in the family. Communities since time immemorial have been the ones taking care of the forest up to now. They are purely pastoralists, and they have used their cultural and indigenous way of managing natural resources in the forest. So communities of the four locations that surround Ngogoda Forest came together for a community organization in 2008 to co-manage Ngogoda Forest. Mwamusi is one of the most unique setups in management of public forests in Kenya. The Ngogoda ecosystem and the Maodikulal ecosystem were selected to be supported through the Restoration Initiative so that we reduce the conflict that may be arising from resource shortage within the ecosystem. Now this is the track of the elephant. It goes in this direction. This is where we used to live in the community of Opalus. This is the way we used to go. We can't go back to the way we used to go. We know that this person has lost everything. We still have to go back to the way we used to go. It's going to go far. It's not going to come back. Ngogoda Forest is like a part of the conservancy. It's like a corridor. The animals pass through here. Most of the animals pass through here because of the flood. Ngogoda Forest is large. We have only 12 rangers. There are places we can't reach, but the community can. So we work with them. The community is responsible for the animals. They take care of the animals. They take care of the elephants. We take photos of the elephants and send them to the farmers. We take photos of the elephants and send them to the farmers. What is your preferred mode for payment? Mobile banking or bank? When it is the dry season, all people from the neighboring counties come to Ngogoda Forest to search for pasture and water for their livestock. They apply pressure to the forest. Cattles are very valuable in Maasai land. We take cattle, sheep and goats like our own will. So we treasure them. The worst drought in decades is gripping eastern Africa. 10,897 households have been displaced following increased resource-based conflicts in the arid and semi-arid countries. We also have conflicts in water and pasture and also they can steal our cattle from us. So there's that major conflict between the people in Ngogoda Forest and the neighboring communities around. To us, livestock is a tool. Overgrazing is caused by the time animals spend in a particular context. If you use cattle in a proper, well-managed way, it can improve rangelands, it can improve productivity and it can create wealth through plant grazing. We have moved away from the normal small herd of 100-200 to what we call ultra-high-density grazing where 1,000 of animals are grazing shoulder to shoulder. In that arrangement where animals are grazing shoulder to shoulder, horse break in the hot, hot soil. And therefore, when it rains, there's a lot of water that gets into the small dams the horse will create. Through the cow dung, the cow will give it back to the soil to activate the mineral sac. So every other two hours, we move to a new location. In that arrangement, there's no harm because you allow plants more time to recover before you go back to the place and block you started. Through the restoration initiative, we've been able to create a partnership and a collaboration in which these technologies are transferred to the community lands so that they can replicate that and scale up for the benefit of their lands. When there's no grass in the community site, we sit down with the grazing committees and then we give them a space for grazing. People bringing their animals together, they combine, they develop a common grazing plan and move according to a plan. We have grazing patterns and also we plant grass in those areas in the semicircular bands. There's some grass species that we wanted to plant so that's the reason why we bought a plant so that we can get actually the seed. This is where we have planted the grass now. We actually plant these seeds so that we will harvest and we use them to restore other dry areas in our entire landscape. We were able to restore the rangelands through planting of grasses, planting of trees within the rangelands, restoring the forest and eliminating invasive species while still giving alternatives to the stressful pastoral livelihoods such as the bio-enterprises that are not harming the ecosystem. We collaborate in security, we collaborate on natural resources, we collaborate on water issues, we collaborate on education. When the resources are depleted outside the community land, that is when conflict arises. So it is now up to all of us to confront the degradation problems because we cannot run away from that problem. Despite the threats of climate change and prolonged droughts and also pressure from neighbouring communities, the forest is still able to thrive because of the culture and the way of life of these communities. My hopes go directly to women. So it's like I'm a role model. When they see me, they are like, oh, so we can do this.