Timber theft leads to degradation of critical habitat for endangered animals

Timber merchants mercillesly  choping tree- Kibwezi, photo by Carolyne Kyalo

Rampant Deforestation of tropical forests constitutes to one of the greatest threats to biodiversity and the conservation of nature. Incredibly, fauna and flora in Kenya is the most endangered on Earth. Though selective timber harvest is part of a silvicultural system used to create or maintain an uneven-aged forest, preservation of critical forest habitats for endangered biodiversity is a difficult and largely unsolved problem.

It requires identifying the critical habitats and excluding all competitive uses from them. Reducing the incentives for forest land conversion to agriculture will help protect some critical habitats in select regions of new development. Moreover, the problem will only compound in any region where local development is associated with further clearing of the forest.

Given the economic, ecological, and climatic importance of plants, scientists will continue to discover ways to facilitate their genome characterization. Trees have significance importances in our lives and “every tree counts in environment conservation”. We manage trees on a landscape to know that they are correctly identified, their geographic source and adaptive characteristics. This can be probably be adopted by utilizing .DNA markers technology. This will be attained through biodiversity recovery and creation of  local carbon sinks to compact global climate change.

In my current research on landscaping and mitigation measures to climate change in Eastern part of Kenya, the key aspects of controlling timber theft, is by sensitizing the community thorough outreach programs on nature restoration . This will be enhanced by propagating of both indigenous and exotic trees nursery management, and pilot plantations timber utilization till maturity time. Most under-utilized tree in this area is Melia volkensii. a tree extraordinary economic importance smallholder farmer

Wild life Animals

Habitat loss for forest animals due to illegal logging contributes to increased deforestations and remains threat to wildlife and other endangered animals.

Climate change communication and adaptation

Farmers and pastoralists, as well as policy makers, development and humanitarian programmes in Africa are searching for the best ways to adapt to the impacts of climate variability and change. Changes in seasonal rainfall patterns and more unpredictable, severe and frequent extreme events like floods and droughts are already being observed, threatening livelihoods in vulnerable communities.

Most adaptation strategies aim to spread or reduce potential risks, for example by using drought tolerant seeds, cereal banks, diversification to non climate dependent income sources, weather based insurance products, or early warning systems. Although such concrete measures are essential, climate change is continuous and unpredictable. Adaptive capacity to make informed and flexible decisions for action is becoming even more important to ensure resilience to climate change impacts.
Climate science and meteorology provide valuable sources of information that can help, not only in predicting future weather and climate (which can never be fully accurate), but also in developing understanding and skill in befriending and managing uncertainty. Seasonal forecasts for example, give probabilities of three different rainfall scenarios.

Gene cloned proteins yet to live up to the Hype...

There’s no argument that biotechnology has dramatically improved global healthcare with the introduction of many novel biotherapeutics . A few examplies include:

Enbrel for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis; 

Rituxan for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma; Herceptin for breast cancer; 

Humulin for diabetes; Procrit for the treatment of anemia in patients with kidney failure, HIV, or cancer

Avastin for metastatic colorectal cancer, advanced nonsquamous non–small cell lung cancer, metastatic kidney cancer, and glioblastoma.