Mangroves are versatile and flexible forests that can cope with enormous disturbances. Dr. Judith Okello, a senior research scientist and mangrove ecologist at the Kenya Marine and Fisheries Research Institute, says that when sedimentation occurs, the mangroves can form a new cable rooting system and migrate when there is space on land. However, due to human influence, global temperatures continue to rise, causing frequent and sporadic weather-related events. When such events occur, they lead to sudden and frequent sedimentation, and the mangroves can get fatigued, resulting in massive dieback ..read more

Today we meet a Kenyan community saving the coral reefs along the Kenyan coast. Coral reefs along the Lamu-Kiunga area in Lamu County, a small archipelago north of Mombasa in Kenya, have degraded over the years. Pate Island, the largest island in the Lamu Archipelago, lies between the towns of Lamu and Kiunga, which depend on fishing. However, fishery productivity depends on healthy corals. How did the coral degradation impact these communities’ livelihoods? What degraded these corals? What are these communities doing about it?  ..read more

Women in Olailamutia, a town in Kenya's Narok County, have had problems with diarrhoea, stomachaches, and skin rashes for many years. Having access to clean drinking water from a spring is helping to get rid of these problems. Families here got water to drink from a river where they also took baths. The river in question has been contaminated due to chemical use, upstream intensive irrigation, and the discharge of untreated sewage into which they bathed their children. In a town that only gets its food from outside sources, having access to water also makes it possible to grow food. Narok Coun ..read more

In today's episode, we meet Isaac Macharia, a Kenyan social entrepreneur who makes cabins out of plastic to keep Kenya’s Masai Mara clean. In 2015, Macharia was on his usual tour-guiding routine at the Masai Mara in Kenya. It bothered him. He decided to construct cabins using not only plastic bottles, but also stashing and hiding every non-biodegradable waste you can think of—straws, broken glass bottles, clothes, beer cans, to name just a few—right in there during construction. To harden and convert the plastic bottle into a smaller brick ..read more

Picture this. It’s a lovely evening. You and your loved one are seated somewhere, enjoying some juice or beer from a glass made out of liquor bottles collected from a dumping site. How does that sound? On today’s episode, meet a young Kenyan lady – Mary Njoki, repurposing waste glass at Masai Mara ..read more

For effective climate action in Africa to take shape, the African Group of negotiators lead negotiator on finance, Ambassador Mohamed Nasr, told the Africa Climate Conversations that the continent must self-assess and work on its own modalities to achieve climate action. Among the things the continent should work on is creating an Africa-specific platform outlining specific projects and programs for climate action that will collect and present all climate projects from the continent as a package. Nasr says specific projects and programs with clear needs presented to the negotiators will be eas ..read more

The climate finance needs of developing countries have risen way beyond the 100 billion USD promised by developed countries 15 years ago. The recent UN 2023 adaptation gap report estimates the cost of adaptation at US$215 billion per year this decade. Access to finance, including means of implementation that are technology and capacity, is a catalyst not just for development but also for adapting to climate change, averting loss and damage, mitigating further climate impacts, and building trust among developed and developing countries. But finance under the climate negotiat ..read more

COP28 takes place against the backdrop of increased financial needs to address climate change adaptation, mitigation, as well as loss and damage. Just to mention, the 2023 UNEP adaptation gap report estimates the cost of adaptation in developing countries at US$215 billion per year this decade. For Africa, the continent requires at least $56 billion annually for adaptation alone by 2030. Between 2020 and 2030, African countries will require an estimated $2.8 trillion in funding to fund the continent's conditional climate plans, or NDCs. In his speech, COP28 president Sultan Al Jaber committed ..read more

A 24-member transitional committee on loss and damage issued a proposal for a new loss and damage fund ahead of the 28th UN Climate Summit (COP28) taking place in Dubai this November. According to Alpha Oumar Kaloga, the African group's lead negotiator on loss and damage, the final decision was made in a tense atmosphere; thus, there is a need to understand the status of the final decision, as the United States had objected at the last moment. Kaloga told the Africa Climate Conversations podcast that developing countries have made compromises because “we cannot abandon our people. We cannot wa ..read more

Lake Ol' Bolossat is the only lake in the Kenyan highlands, situated in Nyandarua County, about a three and a half-hour drive from Kenya’s capital, Nairobi. The lake is situated in the valley between the northwestern slopes of the AberdareRange of Mountains and Dundori Ridge. The lake forms the head waters of the Ewaso Ngiro North Basin, Kenya's largest basin, offering a variety of habitats ranging from open water through floating marsh and swamps to open grasslands and riverine forests along rivers and springs that feed the lake. One of the unique things about Lake Ol’Bolossat is that it ..read more