Community based restoration of coastal and marine habitats

Abstract

Kenya's coastline has diverse coastal and marine ecosystems which include extensive coastal forest/salt marshes, mangroves, seagrass beds, fringing coral reefs and their associated resources. Coastal forests are important habitats due to the high biodiversity and endemism which occur as small, fragmented or highly threatened patches. The total area of coastal forests has been drastically reduced to just 10 percent of the original area. The main threats to coastal forests in Kenya include over-harvesting for timber and fuelwood as well as clearing of forests to pave way for commercial as well as subsistence agriculture. Mangrove forests, on the other hand, provide many goods and services that local communities are heavily dependent on for direct economic uses, such as firewood and building poles, as well as for ecological services, such as nursery provision for the offshore fishery. Extractive uses of mangroves present a threat to their survival. In the last two decades, for instance, almost 20%of Kenya's mangrove forests have been degraded or removed. Seagrasses are submerged marine flowering plants occurring in shallow subtidal marine and estuarine environments. They serve as critical breeding and nursery grounds for juveniles of economic and commercially important species. Large scale losses that have been reported for decades in Kenya have mainly been attributed to overgrazing by urchins as a result of periodic explosions attributed primarily to overfishing of their predators. Other threats include over fishing, pollution, and sedimentation. Coral reefs are very productive ecosystems and offer a vast array of goods and services to coastal towns and populations, including seafood, coastal protection, and recreation/tourism. They support a large part of the country's economy, including small-scale and commercial fishing, tourism (i.e., snorkeling and diving operations). However, with ever-growing human coastal populations, reefs come under increasing threats from overuse, destructive practices, and pollution.