Total Economic Value of Maasai Mau, Trans Mara and Eastern Mau ...

3.0 THE TOTAL ECONOMIC VALUE OF THREE FOREST BLOCKS OF THE MAUCOMPLEX3.1 Direct Use Values3.1.1 Direst use by Forest Adjacent CommunitiesThe households living adjacent to the Maasai Mau are mostly livestock keepers who areincreasingly involved in both subsistence and commercial crop production mostlywheat, maize and potato growing. The households settled inside the forest were hostile,probably because extraction of forest products is illegal. They were therefore notincluded in our survey. Households living adjacent to the forest blocks extract variousproducts and services from the forest for subsistence and sale. According to Langat andCheboiwo (2010), although these households are medium-scale landowners, they arestill highly dependent on the forest for firewood, construction poles, water and grazing.Charcoal production is also a significant income generating activity based on the foresttrees. A household’s dependence on the forest depends on the product, e.g. nearly allthe households obtain water from the forests while 16% of the households obtain grassfor thatching houses. Thus, the value attached to the forest by the household is thefunction of the household’s dependence on the extracted resources. The total value ofthe products extracted from the forest blocks by households is approximately KES 1.7billion (US$ 227 million) per year with firewood accounting for up to 70% of the valueof direct forest benefits (Table 2).27