Kristel and Oi chick

Annual Review 2019/2020

with No Comment Top stories

Our new-look Annual Review is out now and available to read online.

Inside you will read of new leadership as Dr Simon Stuart becomes our Executive Director after some years as an International Trustee (page 6). Our African Forest Programme and Marine Conservation Programme have made great strides (pages 10-13), and national organizations have responded creatively and courageously to the challenges of COVID-19 (page 7).

We pray that you will read these stories – where Christian convictions are being translated into practical conservation – as signs of hope. For hope is now more needed than ever. Thank you for walking with us.

Log-piles-in-Dakatcha-cropped

Securing a future for Dakatcha

with No Comment Top stories

Dakatcha Woodland, on the coast of Kenya, is home to a number of globally threatened species, including Africa’s smallest owl, the Sokoke Scops Owl. Yet this woodland is being destroyed at an alarming rate due to rampant charcoal burning and the uncontrolled expansion of pineapple plantations. Now with COVID-19 hitting the local economy hard and people losing their jobs, the pace of forest destruction has picked up, making the situation even more urgent.

With help from others, A Rocha Kenya has been buying blocks of forest from willing sellers and creating a nature reserve to conserve this unique landscape and safeguard its precious inhabitants. But the recent initiation of land adjudication by the government has led to intensified demand and a rapid escalation of land prices.

Already A Rocha Kenya has acquired 1,517 acres of the planned 10,500–acre A Rocha Dakatcha Nature Reserve, but there is an urgent need to secure 500 acres immediately before they are bought to be burnt for charcoal or ploughed for marginal agriculture.

Throughout the process and as part of A Rocha Kenya’s community conservation approach, the team are involving people adjacent to the reserve in the sustainable management of their land, teaching in schools and churches and introducing restorative farming and income-generating activities such as honey production.

Read more about Dakatcha and how you can help.

manny-becerra-vA1UgXr0QIY-unsplash-scaled

Wildfires, logging and climate change

with No Comment Top stories

With over 5 million acres (2.25 million hectares) burned in three coastal states and fires dotting the US West, many communities have evacuated, and a few have burnt down – over 1,000 homes are gone. Smoke has created very unhealthy air quality and has been detected in Europe.

Mark McReynolds is the Director of SoCal A Rocha. He previously led a federally funded, three-year effort to educate teachers on forest issues and has a PhD in Environmental Studies. He says, ‘People want answers. The logging industry is calling for “fuel reduction”, aka logging, which sounds reasonable, but diverts attention from climate change (the driver of increased intense wildfires), from practical steps to save communities, and from evidence that logging makes fires worse.’

Chad Hanson, a fire ecologist with the John Muir Project and friend of A Rocha, argues that logging does not stop fires. Fires burn hotter and faster in logged forests and do not tend to burn more intensely in dense forests¹ or in forests with high numbers of dead trees². Logging also creates local environmental problems and annually emits more carbon in the USA than residential and commercial sectors combined³ – creating more climate change.

Unless there is change, more and larger fires are likely a new normal. A Rocha USA is encouraging people to ask their elected officials to address climate change and assist communities to develop protective housing construction and zoning regulations that minimize wildfire effects on people.

Photo by Manny Becerra on Unsplash