Understanding the Depths in Aberdare Forest Burning

The recent incidents of tongues of fire raging down the Aberdare Forest in Kenya have continued for some time. The incidents have been covered briefly on mainstream media, a little talk on the interventions and that was all. Unfortunately, there is a lot that the mainstream media has not told you, and this is what you must pay attention to in this article.

Before then, what are the causes of these forest fires? There are various possible causes of the fire, but emphasis is put on human and natural causes. ?As for human causes, someone must have started the fire unknowingly or knowingly in their endeavour to exploit charcoal, or maybe a burning cigarette butt and many others that you might think of.

Natural courses are highly linked to the prolonged drought season in most parts of the country whose major contributor is the climate crisis the world is battling now. In lower primary science, you must have learnt of how convex lenses can spark a fire. When the atmosphere is too dry, the appearance of water droplets in the atmosphere could act as convex lenses to concentrate sun’s rays onto the surfaces leading to fires. There could be other reasons involved that you can think about. What are they?

What you need to understand is how much is lost in the biodiversity loss. Kindly pay closer attention to these facts. The Aberdare Forest is a Tropical Rainforest ecosystem that harbours more than 778 plant and vegetation species and subspecies. It also contains some of the important hardwoods such as podo, hagenia and cedar. The forest ecosystem is endowed with a wide range of animal wildlife not to mention the endangered species such as the Jackson Mongoose, black and white colobus monkey and Sykes reedbuck and bushbuck. It is also home to the rare African golden cat among others. As such, it has a complex energy flow as the key food chains and webs necessary to support life on earth are concerned.

Secondly, the Aberdare Forest Ecosystem is the source of several important rivers such as the Tana River and Athi that drain in the Indian Ocean, Ewaso Nyiro that drains in Lorian Swamp and River Malewa that drains into Lake Naivasha.

When a forest fire ravages more than 40000 hectares of land and it does not spark a desire for action among people especially those in power, then something is terribly wrong. This subject is of much superior importance to the other “important” areas of focus that our mainstream media is concentrating on right now.

What do we need to do? Of paramount importance, there is need to drum up environmental conservation awareness activities among communities. Greater focus should be to especially those that boarder such important ecosystems as the Aberdare, Mt Kenya, Tsavo, all of which have suffered massive burns in less than a year. ??Community involvement and provision of alternative sources of income generating activities and fuel are vital in mitigating future problems. When a community is given a sense of belonging, it will be the number one protector once it understands the value of the resources at its disposal.

How can you participate from wherever you are? You could actually participate by reading this article and sharing it to your networks. You could also share the contents of this article to your immediate neighbourhood because you never know how much impact that can create. ?Making the planet habitable is our goal and we all must play an active role to see what we wish for to manifest.?