Tana Delta Irrigation Project, Kenya: An Environmental Assessment

Rehabilitation of the Tana Delta Irrigation Project, Kenya: An Environmental Assessment.
other villages contain functional elder, women and youth institutions, active in various
development activities, but not as yet representing functional, active environmental
management capacity.
C. Institutional linkages
• The attitude of villages towards TARDA is extremely negative, based on tangible losses to
livelihoods; perceived unfulfilled agreements on the part of TARDA; and the arrogant
attitude of TARDA as experienced by communities, whereby communities are not even
informed of TARDA plans and/or decisions, let alone consulted.
• Any attempt on TARDA’s part to engage in partnership with the community will likely not
succeed, due to the community’s distrust of TARDA.
• Short-tern advancement of the relationship between TARDA and the community will, out of
necessity, need to be based on TARDA’s willingness to provide villages with tangible
benefits, under community control.
• A necessary pre-requisite to the long-term advancement of the relationship between
TARDA and the community is the engagement of the community by TARDA as equal
partners
• Villages lack strong positive links with external institutions, with only occasional and lowlevel
assistance from development NGOs.
• Internal institutions play the most significant role in community development. Whilst active
and motivated, their effectiveness, however, is hampered by lack of resources.
• Positive engagement and/or assistance from government agencies is, essentially, nonexistent.
RECOMMENDATIONS
The following is recommended with respect to the proposed rehabilitation of the TDIP,
assuming that the rehabilitation contains the twin objectives of environmental and social
sustainability:
1. The proposed rehabilitation should take account of, and attempt to redress, the
TDIP communities’ state of poverty, vulnerability and lack of development options.
The TDIP holds significant potential to contribute to resolving a significant number of the
underlying conditions that maintain villages in a cycle of poverty. Specifically:
1. Engage the communities as development partners, through shared consultation,
information, planning and implementation.
2. Consider delivering on the original expectation that communities would be able to
cultivate rice within those traditional lands that fall within the TDIP, and sell to the
TDIP at fair prices.
3. Continue providing employment opportunities, with payment executed in a timely
manner.
4. Consider the feasibility of assisting communities with periodic water supply for crops.
2. That efforts be made to conserve the forests by piloting participatory or community
forest management (PFM/CFM), given the importance of the forests to community
livelihoods; their historical management by communities; and their threatened
existence. Specifically:
A. To conduct a detailed forest utilization study, in conjunction with the communities, on
use levels, use types, and species involved within each forest patch, in order to
identify preferred species, rates of use, and threat status of each.
B. To explore devolution (limited or otherwise) of authority over and management of
forests to communities, preferably in conjunction with a co-management agent to
provide enforcement and technical assistance, and oversight.
C. Officially endorsed demarcation (by title or otherwise) of forest patches between
villages based on traditional village boundaries. Special consideration needs to be
given to accommodating Baandi village claims, suggested as the boundary
separating Salama and Galili Locations. Consideration will also need to be given to
any claims by other communities on the forests associated with the TDIP, to be
addressed in an appropriate manner.
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