THEME 5
SUSTAINABLE ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH CONSERVATION AND MANAGEMENT
To – day our nation is facing an environmental and ecological crisis which is being recognized as one of the major problems of our development. If the current trends continue, the future of life of our society is endangered.
FORESTS AND VEGETATION
The clearance of forests and vegetation are undertaken for a number of reasons, but most commonly to make way for the expansion of cultivation or grazing and or provide fuel wood or logging for timber, provide new sites for industrial and urban settings. Rapid increases in human population and improved access to forests have combined in recent times to create an accelerating pace of deforestation which has which has become a source of concern both at national and international levels. The forests and vegetation as part of human life helps in regulating local climates, water flow and nutrient recycles as well as reservoirs of biological diversity. One of the most important reason for desertification as a major global environmental issue is the link between resource degradation and food production.
Loss of forests and vegetation leading to desertification reduces the productivity of the land and hence loss of food is available for local populations. Accelerating soil erosion may result and in the longer term soil is deprived of inputs of nutrients and organic matter from decomposing leaf matter. Water tables may also be affected. In Kenya, where about half of the rainfall is returned to the atmosphere via evaporation, widespread removal of forest cover could have a serious impact on the hydrological cycle, with consequent negative effects on rainfall and hence continued forest survival and agriculture. Deforestation releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere through burning or decomposition, possibly contributing to global warming through the greenhouse effect. The possible climatic impact of large scale forest clearance resulting from effects on the hydrological and carbon cycles may occur on regional and global scales.
One of the most widely discussed consequences of deforestation is the loss of plant, microbial and animal species. However, another too common casualty of deforestation and vegetation loss is indigenous peoples, for whom death or loss of cultural identity usually favours the arrival of external cultures. To extend the library metaphor with regard to the potential wider uses of biodiversity, the impacts of deforestation on tribal peoples is equivalent to killing off the librarians who know about the library and upon which their livelihoods depend.
The methods of land use that are applied to intensively and hence contribute to desertification are of intensive grazing, over cultivation and overexploitation of vegetation. Although specific land uses have been the subject of most interest from desertification researchers, it can be argued that permanent solutions to specific problem areas can only be found when the deeper reasons for people misusing natural resources are identified. Such reasons many of which are rooted in social, economic and political systems. It is just as important to understand the underlying forces and offer alternatives, the amelioration of which is of equal significance in the quest to find long-lasting solutions to desertification problems.
RIVERS, LAKES AND WETLANDS
Fresh water plays an integral role in the functioning of our environments and societies. Society’s use fresh water: its availability and quality are at risk as global as well as local water withdrawals continue to increase. In many rivers and lakes, ecological degradation is caused by multiple human impacts – widespread deforestation has continued to the degradation of aquatic habitats. Wetlands form the overlap between dry terrestrial ecosystems and undulated aquatic systems, such as rivers, lakes and seas (wetlands are areas of marsh, fern, peat land, or water, whether natural or artificial, permanent or temporary, with water that is static or flowing, fresh, brackish or salt, including areas of marine water, the depth of which at low tide does not exceed six meters). Wastelands are an important component of the global biosphere and the alarming rate at which they are being destroyed as a cause of concern.
Wetlands perform some key natural functions and provide a wealth of direct and indirect benefits to human societies; a wide variety of plants and animals, hydrology and productivity. These are the main reasons for wetland reclamation, although in our case it is becoming difficult to protect wetlands from development projects due to weak legislations.
FISHERIES
Global marine fish production is humankind largest source of either wild or domesticated animal protein and is particularly important in Kenya. The 1990’s saw the end of a 40 year fishing boom. The location of marine fisheries is governed principally by the distribution of floating plants on which they depend for food, and the most important factor determining phytoplantation production is the supply of nutrients. However, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between the impacts of our population and the national variability of stocks, dependent upon species biology, migratory habits, food availability and natural hydrographic factors.
POLLUTION
Agriculture is the leading non-point source of pollutants, such as sediments, pesticides and nutrients, particularly nitrogen and phosphorus. The growing use of chemicals, fertilizers, fuelled by increasing demands for food, has led to a steady concentration of nutrients in many rivers and ground waters, in recent decades. While a nitrate pollution of waters, linked to cancers of digestive tract and so called “blue baby syndrome” do not currently pose serious threats to public health. The continued rapid rise in concentrations may be a cause for concern in the future. This is exacerbated by lack of effective monitoring of water quality in the country.
Riverine pollution from sewages is certainly an acute problem facing many developing countries like Kenya, where sewage treatment is inadequate or non-exist ant. The most important pollutants are nitrogen, phosphorus, phenols, sodium chloride (NACL) and sulphur tetra oxide S04, concerned efforts and political will are not available to improve water quality and riverine management.
GROUND WATER POLLUTION
The water needs of urban populations and industry are often supplemented by pumping from ground water and pollution of this one is another pollution of increasing concern. Seepage from the improper use and disposal of heavy metals, synthetic chemicals and other hazardous wastes, such as sewage is a principal origin of groundwater pollution.
The wide variety of sources, causes and effects of human induced pollution of the marine environment, the varying persistence of marine pollution are also caused by socio –economic and political conditions. The river, lake or coastal pollution also reach the wider context of the high seas and oceans. The lack of ecological strides in the open water cloud our understanding of the effects of pollutants there. Mangrove forests provide a diverse and productive wetland ecosystems and are under threat from human action despite their importance in breeding and feeding grounds for many species of fish and crustaceans, and their role in protecting coastal areas from erosion, floods, and provide food, fuel and waste-water purification.
URBAN ATMOSHERE
Kenya’s entry into the international community and the opening of the economy since 1990s has presented a number of challenges in environmental health and sustainability. Urban areas have a diverse catalogue of environmental effects but the most serious element pertains to quality. The principal sources of pollution in urban areas are derived from a combustion of fossil fuels for domestic heating, power generators, in motor vehicles, in industrial processes, in the urban agriculture and in the disposal of solid wastes by incineration. These sources emit a variety of pollutants, the most common of which have been sulphur dioxide (SO2), oxides of nitrogen (N0 and N02), carbon monoxide (C0), suspended particulate matter (SPM), and lead (PB), oxide (03) among others.
These atmospheric pollutants affect human health, directly through inhalation, and indirectly through such exposure routes as drinking water and food contaminations. Most traditional air pollutants directly affect respiratory and cardiovascular systems. For example, carbon monoxide (C0) has a high affinity for hemoglobin and is able to displace the oxygen in blood, leading to cardiovascular and neurobehavioral effects. High levels of sulphur dioxide and SPM have been associated with increased mortality, morbidity and impaired pulmonary function, and O3 is known to affect the respiratory system and irritate the eyes, nose and throat and cause headache. Certain sectors of the population are often at great risk: the young, the elderly and those weakened by other disability ailments including poor nutrition.
THIN organization is providing a sound foundation for social and scientific basis for understanding and long-term use and conservation of the environment and natural resources. The project is giving opportunities t women, children, youth, individualists, commerce, transporters, producers, among others to participate in issue pertaining to local environmental programmes and both traditional and cultural values blended with science and technology advances offers hope and answers. Although we are confronted by greater challenges to-day than before, at global, regional, and national and local levels, we must consider and differentiate between developed and developing countries. To help us design a new philosophy through which shared responsibilities will be assumed in a conscecous and adequate way. Indeed the new scientific and the technological thinking can open avenues and perspective in our search for solutions.
Outcomes Brief description of cooperating strategies Major lines of action Programme modality
Clean viable development mechanism - Networking of interdisciplinary field research, education, demonstration and teaching activities.
- Capacity building at all levels
- Cooperate exchange of reports, notes, databases, and educational materials.
- Water and air pollution strategies
- Support environmental policy formulations. - Identify document a wide range of problems relating to environmental damage and risks
- Engage the attention of interest groups, communities in diverse fields, conservation, agriculture, transport,urban planning, industry, commerce, consumer protection and others in cooperative methodologies.
- Diversification , development and dissemination of multi purpose trees, solar energy, biogas, medicinal plants and testing of low cost stoves Collaboration, joint programming and implementation
THEME 6
CONSERVATION OF BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY GENETIC SPECIES AND ECOSYSTEMS SERVICES.
Biodiversity (or biological diversity) Is commonly defined in terms of genes, species and ecological systems and cultural diversity. Although scientists have been systematically counting and classifying other living organisms for at least two centuries, we remain remarkably ignorant of most basic information concerning the living things with which we share the earth, moreover ,our knowledge og biomes and individual ecosystems is unsatisfactory and therefore we do not understand ways in which biological diversity affects the functioning of the ecosystems. Although the genetic diversity is the ultimate basis of evolution and for the adaptation of populations to their environment, it is even less understood.
Estimates of the rate at which species are becoming extinct , mostly due to human action, indicate the action has been growing exponentially since the seventeenth century . Current and projected estimates of species loss are based upon the rate at which habitants are being destroyed, modifies and fragmented. Species may also become extinct due to a range of other natural circumstances, such as random catastrophic events ( we know that the earths climate is dynamic over a variety of time scales) or through competition with other species, disease or predation . one other mass extinction is occurring currently in which the earths human population is playing the key role. Six fundamental cause of biodiversity loss have been identified.
• The unsuitability high rate of human population growth and attendant natural resources consumption.
• A narrowing spectrum of products from agriculture, forestry and fishing.
• Economic systems that fail to value the environment and its resources.
• Inequality in ownership, management and flow of benefits from both the use and conservation of biological resources.
• Deficiencies in knowledge and applications.
• Legal and institutional systems that promote unsustainable exploitation.
Biodiversity is useful to us in the wide perspective, in mentioning the biosphere as functioning system in which we are part (called ecosystem services) and at a more functional level in providing resources for agriculture, industry, medicine and other utilization needs. ( these values are both direct (using animals for food and cutting trees foe fire wood , fore 3example) and indirect (such as for aesthetic and recreational services. There is also potential use of diversity which up to-date not realized. However, certain species are considered determined to human activities and therefore the subject of deliberate attempts to control or exterminate their populations. Species regarded as pests are obvious examples here.
There importance of maintaining genetic diversity in the world is because it might one day prove useful for agricultural crops.
Since the destruction, modification and fragmentation of habitants is the primary threat to biodiversity, the protection of habitants is the most obvious conservation method. However, in practice, some types of habitants are better protected than others, largely due to the fact that the actual designation of sites is often based more upon social-economic and political factors than on conservation ideals. The types and quality of protection and management in these areas also vary greatly. A lack of political and financial support limits the success of many protected areas.
Poor management and continued human encroachments into protected areas threatens the remaining habitats. Poaching for skins, bones, medicines and smuggling (biopiracy) are rapidly increasing in these times of hardships.
Conflict between the aims of conservation and these of local people is a key issue in the threatened species debate since without local involvement in both the design and management of habitats cannot succeed.
Adequate protection can sometimes be achieved if the agencies have the authority to enforce regulations. This is both undesirable and unattainable, and this realization represents a major shift in practical conservation philosophy. even in these areas that receive maximum protection , however, active conservation management usually needed because often is not sufficient simply to cordon off an area and leave it to be , such management is not always an easy task. A ban of hunting for example, is theoretically easy to introduce and grazing cows, goats, sheep are relatively easy to control, and even eliminate , but a threat from and introduced plant is much more intractable. Some conservationists argue that bans can only be a short envisaged of by the people who demand certain products and can be persuaded against misuse of the same.
Effective management is also depended upon a sufficient understanding of the ecology of the organisms in question. Which is not always the case? While the conservation of species is best achieved by their maintain ace in the world, through protected areas programmes and legislative measures, other practices may be necessary for species whose populations are small to be viable in wild or not located in protected areas .)off-site or ex-site conservation) and for example plants a re maintained in botanical gardens , arboreta, seed banks, in practice off-site techniques complement on-site approaches in a number of ways, such as by providing individuals for research , the results of which can be fed back into management techniques in the wild- or providing individuals that can be reintroduced into the wild . such programmes may prove expensive , logistically demanding, and require long term management and monitoring to assure and asses their success.
Outcomes
Brief description of co-operations strategies
Major line of action
Programme modality.
Biodiversity and ecosystems conserved. - Promote community participation and partnerships.
-Identify, document and establish database of the information in existing taxonomic collections.
-Promote assistance to students and facilitate research via internship programmes.
-Networking and sharing of information on north-south-east basis.
-Establish mechanisms for pharmaceutical research and benefit sharing. -Promote training at all levels.
-Make innovations and assessments of local collections and establish conservation measure.
-Establish collaboration mechanisms and promote awareness through education, lobbying etc.
-Secure financial support from government, agencies private sectors and individuals.
-Establish mechanisms to return benefits to support conservation of important biological materials.
Collaboration joint programme and implementation.
THEME 7
TECHNOLOGIES OF INFORMATION, EDUCATION AND COMMUNICATION (TIEC)
Until now, outlying areas of Kenya country have been cut off from the world not only physically, but also physically and socially. Neither the government of broadcaster can economically justify building ground based transmitter that would been programmes to poor areas. People can either pay for broadcasting services or buy goods from advertisers. While the communications media reveals a world beyond our immediate community, its power may go unnoticed. It informs, instructs and entertains. Incase of news organizations, its primary power rests in not telling us what to think but in making choices about news coverage , which in turn influences how we interpret and perceive events around us. Who should choose what news to cover? At what level should these decisions be made? And what are the ramifications of the choices? Words and images shape our ideas and opinions.
But now in regions lacking cables, poles, and the elaborate infrastructure of conventional communication , wireless communication and decentralized sources or renewable energy are an ideal material that can be installed quickly to fill the need. For example thr technology now exists to place in every isolated village an “information kiosk” a booth containing a cellular telephone, radio , television, video cassette recorder and even a computer linked to a internet- all powered by solar energy. Satellite broadcasts can bring villagers information ranging from weather alerts to arithmetic lessons to tips for carting for new born. With a telephone , farmers can monitor market conditions and avoid selling crops when prices are weak and parents could phone for a medical advice when a child is sick. With the strides being made in telemedicine, distance learning, and similar services, the information kiosk will serve as a classroom, agricultural extension office, doctors examination room, and bulletin board not just an entertainment kiosk.
The seeds of these rural information networks are already being planned . the purpose is to provide the users with the information they need. On a usable form at the time they require it. Now information is constantly being produced and acquired because new facts about various subjects are constantly being identified, and trained people, ordinary citizens whenever they are in various fields and occupants needs to read and taught to refresh the knowledge they have. Information has become an instrument of development.
Consummate information improvers the quality of performance and eventually increased productivity. The information, communication technology (TIEC) impacts on these perusing =non-formal education and involves the provision of facilities for the education and empowerment at all levels. Technology has touched every aspect of our lives, personal computers, the internet and cellular phones are part of our culture.
At the district level, a complete ICT is necessary including a library. Books and other library materials contain vital information. The library keeps a wide range of materials such as books on various disciplines, report literature of various organizations, including THIN annual reports, conferences and similar proceedings, newspapers, magazines, government publications and other periodicals and non – print materials, including those in the fields of health, agriculture, environment, biological biodiversity, culture, development among others. Which are relevant to the needs of the staff of THIN and other organizations. The library also allows that the materials from which there is known demand or which is likely to be required at short notice is either in the library or is easily available from other sources. BOOKS ARE FOR USE – THE LIBRARY IS FOR ALL. These practical, affordable combination of decentralized communication and decentralized energy sources means that no village need remain isolated from knowledge, advice or opportunity or from their larger societies.
Outcomes Brief description of cooperation strategies Major lines of Action Programme modality
• Poor peoples empowered
• Enhanced capacity for rural food development -Establish information and knowledge technologies and “Kiosks”.
-Intensify information systems, strategies and products
-Contribute to capacity building and information management at all levels
-Evaluation and monitoring
-Support development of intellectual property rights among researchers and local peoples. -Intensify communication strategies on health and development platforms
-Fundraising and resource mobilization
-Provide ICT. Training and information expertise at all levels and gatekeepers
-Supporting multi-sect oral information systems (MIS) Collaboration joint programming and implementation
