Nyayo Tea Zones Development Corporation participated in the just concluded Africa Climate Summit -2023 held in Nairobi and sponsored a side session titled ‘The Role of Buffer Zones in Enhancing Climate Resilience among Peri Forest Communities’. During the session, the panelists articulated the impact of the corporation’s buffer zones in forest conservation which includes protection of key water towers, retention of forest biodiversity, and contribution to carbon sequestration due to increased forest cover while at the same time reducing the peri-forest communities vulnerability to climate change through livelihoods support.
The experts isolated these communities demographics as the youth, women and the elderly who -in the absence of bigger zones- would be alienated from the natural resources available in their locality, thereby exposing them to the vagaries of climate change.
The panelists led by Managing Director Mr. Peter Korir showcased the Corporation’s buffer zone model that engages over 14000 people across the country and impacts 60,000 others across the country, thereby inspiring participatory forest conservation and livelihoods support for rural communities.The Corporation’s agro-ecological has thus cushioned peri-forest communities from extreme poverty and lack of means for subsistence , thus co-opting them as partners in forest conservation and enable them to contribute to adaptation and mitigation against climate change.
The Corporation is looking forward to donor partnerships in green finance, clean energy and climate mitigation and adaptation to further entrench the buffer conservation model and continue impacting communities’ resilience against climate change.
