Kenya’s government and a group of donors have signed a $160 million conservation programme aimed at protecting 173,000 square km (17.3 million hectares) of some of the \u200bmost complex and least disturbed natural environments on Earth.<\/p>\n
The Thamani Asili initiative, which \u200cmeans “value of nature” in Kiswahili, will focus on key biodiversity hotspots from the Great Rift Valley to the Maasai Mara which are home to thousands of elephants, rhinos, lions and other species.<\/p>\n
Details on Wednesday showed \u200bit will combine $80 million from dozens of donors including billionaire heirs of the \u200bWalton and Cargill families, with a similar amount from the Kenyan government over \u2060the next 10 years.<\/p>\n
The money aims to fund new conservation areas and improve management \u200bof some existing ones using a “Project Finance for Permanence” (PFP) model, which binds funding to key government \u200bpolicy changes.<\/p>\n
Kenya’s Cabinet Secretary for Tourism and Wildlife, Rebecca Miano, said it would both protect the country’s wildlife and help farmers and communities that share the landscapes.<\/p>\n
A recent UN Environment Programme report cited past government \u200bestimates that around 42% of Kenya’s GDP and 70% of employment in the country depends \u200bon nature in one form or another.<\/p>\n
Kenya’s environmental credentials have been thrust into the spotlight in recent \u200cweeks after \u2060President William Ruto and Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, broke ground on a new $16 billion dollar oil refinery being built on the country’s coast.<\/p>\n
The PFP model is gaining popularity. Brazil and Gabon both announced similar agreements last year, while others are in the works in both Namibia \u200band Botswana.<\/p>\n
Ruth Masha at \u200bThe Nature Conservancy, \u2060which helped put together the plan, said it would initially focus on four key regions.<\/p>\n
One of them, Tsavo, is home to the country’s \u200blargest national parks, 40% of its elephants and 20% of its \u200bcritically endangered \u2060black rhinos. Another in the south along the border with Tanzania includes the Maasai Mara national reserve and connects into the Serengeti.<\/p>\n
It is also set to get the government closer to the \u2060global target \u200bto protect 30% of land and sea for nature \u200bby 2030. TNC estimates Kenya is currently at around 20%-23%.<\/p>\n
“There is a substantial gap that would be largely closed,” \u200bthe head of TNC’s PFP programme, Ryan Bidwell, said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Kenya’s government and a group of donors have signed a $160 million conservation programme aimed at protecting 173,000 square km (17.3 million hectares) of some of the \u200bmost complex and least disturbed natural environments on Earth. The Thamani Asili initiative, which \u200cmeans “value of nature” in Kiswahili, will focus on key biodiversity hotspots from the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":22359,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":5,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2976,29,32,2362,34],"tags":[212,181,111,60,5542,5543],"class_list":["post-22358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-climate-change-news","category-east-africa","category-economy","category-featured","category-society","tag-botswana","tag-gabon","tag-kenya","tag-namibia","tag-thamani-asili-initiative","tag-un-environment-programme"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22358"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22358\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22360,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22358\/revisions\/22360"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}