Kenya Forest Service (KFS) has facilitated the formulation process of the Nairobi City Park Community Forest Association (CFA).
KFS also helped with the election process of its officials who constitute the management committee that will collaborate with the Service in co-managing the park.
This comes after a Presidential Directive issued last year for KFS to take over the management of the park to rehabilitate.
This is after the park deteriorated and insecurity increased.
This directive mandated KFS to ensure that the park is restored into a safer green space.
The park’s mark to Kenya’s history cannot be gainsaid owing to its hosting historic sites which include graves of the country’s societal figures including the Late Pio Gamma Pinto and Kenya’s Second Vice President the late Joseph Murumbi and his wife.
This sensitization is what led to the formation of the Nairobi City Park Community Forest Association (CFA) through the elections that were conducted on Wednesday under the supervision of KFS CFA Coordinator Ms Josilyn Thambu and Nairobi Ecosystem Conservator, Ms. Margaret Wanjiru.
Ms Thambu meticulously took members of the community through all steps required to ensure the success of the process.
Some of the steps included formulation of a member’s register to identify CFA membership, identification of user rights, appointment of user group leaders, and the election of executive committee leaders.
The user rights identified by members of community present included sports, research, beekeeping, ecotourism, community scouting, event management, tree nurseries, waste management, rehabilitation, recreation, culture, and heritage.
Following successful elections, Ms Thambu lauded the community for identifying the importance of the park and the need to support KFS in co-managing the resource for their own benefit.
She added that KFS, in collaboration with the CFA would now embark on working towards formulation of a Participatory Forest Management Plan (PFMP) which will lay down the User-rights through which members of the public will benefit from the forest resource.
This will then lead to the signing of a Forest Management Agreement (FMA) between the two entities to ensure adherence to the PFMP.
The newly elected chairperson Kamau Thuo appreciated the support from KFS in sensitizing and building the capacity of the park’s adjacent community to empower and involve them in the co-management of the resource.
Thuo thanked the membership for bestowing him as the pioneer CFA Chair and committed to working for the interests of the membership.
Kamau Thuo is an environmentalist and a practicing agroforester.
In 2015 he successfully sponsored a motion at the Nairobi City County Assembly to rename Forest Road to Professor Wangari Mathaai road.