The CULINKE Sustainable Development and Responsible Environmental Practices 

 

To promote sustainable development through the direct involvement of local communities in environmental conservation, biodiversity conservation, renewable energy and management of eco-tourism sites as a strategy of reducing poverty through environmental conservation.

 

80% of Kenyans derive their livelihood from land and natural resources; with widespread poverty in rural areas this has led to over-exploitation of natural resources. Deforestation and unsustainable agriculture is reducing the vegetable capital stock, soils’ water retention capacity and increasing erosion. CULINKE mainstreams environmental conservation in her poverty reduction activities and works with stakeholders in promoting and supporting community initiatives aimed at conservation, sustainable utilisation and management of the environment and natural resources especially land, water and forests.

 

CULINKE acknowledges that growth is essential to reducing poverty and in achieving the MDGs, but that growth at any cost is not sustainable as this places a heavy burden on the environment. Unsustainable environmental practices and poor resource management in the rush and desire to alleviate poverty and achieve the MDGs, results into development practices that take more potentially renewable resources from the natural world than can be replenished naturally. CULINKE understands that the environment must have the capacity to cleanse and renew by natural process. This is CULINKE’s guiding principle in environmental concerns. 

 

On a wider scale given the reliance of most African countries on agriculture and primary commodities for income and subsistence, ecosystems and natural resources are particularly important to sub-Saharan Africa. Yet reliance on natural resources for subsistence and economic growth increases vulnerability to resource depletion and ecosystem stresses. The welfare of the poor is especially dependent on the sustainable management and, where appropriate, protection of the natural resource base.

 

CULINKE does through awareness creation, capacity building and advocacy encourage communities to own and understand their inextricable responsibility to the environment. Linkages between wealth creation, sustainable environmental habits and sustainable consumption patterns as degrading the quality and quantity of environmental resources and resulting into environmentally unsustainable practises and unsustainable consumption patterns are addressed.

 

CULINKE acknowledges that tourism and tourism-related services offer untold economic potential, however tourists still have a responsibility to protect biodiversity when they visit as a show of a united human effort to sustain the environment. CULINKE works with touring firms and local communities to find locally appropriate ways of protecting biodiversity. The locals, tourists and state guests will be encouraged to plant trees as they travel and sightsee.

 

CULINKE promotes responsible growth that considers efficient use of natural resources and transformation of communities into environmental right-holders rather than stakeholders as the best safeguard for sustainable local ecology. Without good care of the environment, watershed protection will be impaired, leading to soil erosion and flash flooding soil fertility will then be reduced and biodiversity will be lost.

 

Decentralisation of the process of environmental sustainability through “devolution” of responsibilities to the locals is CULINKE’s core strategy in this area. In this way the local own the environment and protect it.

 

Activities: 

1. Partnering with other organisations to promote programmes and activities aimed at conservation, sustainable utilisation and management of the environmental and natural resources especially land, water, forest, which together constitute an integral part of poverty reduction efforts.

2. Partnering with other stakeholders in organising community- level training on the most appropriate technology or approaches such as integrated nutrient management and water harvesting.

3. Ensuring that local communities plant trees as a reforestation and conservation strategy.

4. Organise with local communities Eco-and Cultural Tourism and earn from the tours as an incentive to conservation efforts and as an Income Generation Enterprise.

5. Participate with other stakeholders in activities and trainings to curb disasters such as drought and floods emanating from improper and unsustainable use of land and other natural resources.

6. Place litterbins at strategic places in the central business areas and within tourist sites.

7. Organise and participate in environmental clean-up exercises along with other stakeholders as regularly as possible.