Green Podium

Kenya has an estimated coastline of about 1420 km and with such a huge coastline, a number of challenges do present themselves as well, when it comes to matters of environmental conservation. Among these challenges is the menace of solid waste management which leads to an eyesore and has an effect in our oceans especially from plastic pollution. On the 28th of August 2017, the ban on plastic carrier bags came into effect. This move was hailed from far and wide across the world as a positive one due to the obnoxious nature of the single use plastic bags to the environment. Kenya has now become a case study in matter relating to plastic bags ban. However, there has been lapses in effecting this ban as some unscrupulous businessmen have been smuggling into the country these bags aided by corrupt border point officials. Much of the plastic bags currently being illegally used are coming in from neighbouring countries especially Uganda. We are also witnessing a situation where the use of

The Mau Forest is Kenya's largest remaining indigenous forest. It is also the largest of our five water catchment areas with the other four being Cherangani Hills, Mt Elgon, Mt Kenya and Aberdares Range. Mau Forest is a catchment area for Lake Victoria and the White Nile river. It covers a number of counties in the country including Nakuru, Bomet, Kericho and Narok. Th destruction of the Mau has affected the country in several ways. We have witnessed the flow of rivers being affected resulting in poor transmission of water for irrigation purposes, erratic weather patterns, and flash floods with towns such as Narok bearing the brunt of it. The Mau forest issue has been shrouded in alot of politics with one section of the community claiming to have been issued with title deeds to settle in parts of the forest while others oppose their occupation of the forest land and support their eviction. Mau forest is a critical ecosystem not only for this country but also several other n

Thousands of people along the Kenyan coast rely on fishing activities for their livelihood, an activity which also generates a huge amount of revenue for the country. However, fishermen face a number of challenges during their day to day activities in the waters and among these is the effect of climate change on development of coral reefs. Coral reefs usually form an integral part of the marine ecosystem due to the fact that they are a breeding zone for fish and other marine organisms. Corals are among the highly endangered ecosystems in the world. One of the factors leading to this is climate change. Climate change has resulted in rise of sea temperatures which has led to coral bleaching, an occurance that is quite destructive to the coral reefs. Bleached corals                   source:  Genetic Literacy Project The increase of global temperatures makes the corals to lose the symbiotic algae know as zooxanthellae that exists in their tissues. This algae is the one that is r