In August of 2022, the Woody Weeds + (WW+) team conducted a reconnaissance mission to the Merti plateau of Isiolo County, Kenya, where prosopis has invaded the landscape with destructive and devastating impacts on their livelihoods. Isiolo is one of the target Counties where WW+ is piloting implementation of Kenya’s National Prosopis Strategy, working with key institutional stakeholders as well as community groups.
This was a follow up to the first County Implementation Group (CIG) workshop held earlier in the year to develop spatially explicit prosopis management plans. Participants of this workshop prioritised Merti region for possible management interventions. During the visit the team met with the area chiefs, ward administrators, community leaders, as well as women self-help groups who are implementing sustainable land management (SLM) practices for prosopis management.
The interesting part of this visit was the way in which women have turned the heroes of the community. The women unite to reclaim important assets such as access roads and paths to sources of water. The women are organised into groups and have routines to clear prosopis. They use dry cow dung to burn prosopis trees at the base, thus killing the trees, which results in lasting removal. Naturally regenerating species should be promoted to replace prosopis, in addition to enrichment planting. The women have empowered themselves as the local heroes and are only motivated by the fact that they will restore their landscape, one prosopis tree at a time.
This meeting came just at the opportune time as the area was prioritised during the first CIG workshop and has been selected for a WW+ demonstration site for SLM practices that target prosopis. There is a need to build capacity of the women groups to further empower their efforts in implementing the SLM practice. We will develop, together with the women groups, an action plan to offer technical support on implementing the SLM, which will result in expansion of the area cleared of prosopis coupled with restoration activities.
