Nairobi National Park

Översikt

Nairobi National Park is a national park in Kenya. Established in 1946, the national park was Kenya's first. It is located approximately 7 kilometres (4 mi) south of the centre of Nairobi, Kenya's capital city, with an electric fence separating the park's wildlife from the metropolis.

Nairobi National Park is only seven kilometres from the city centre. It is the only protected area in the world with such a variety of animals and birds so close to a capital city. As the city expanded, so has this precious wildlife habitat been increasingly exposed to urban air pollution and threatened by incursions on its land base.

The Park covers an area of 117 km2 and it is a dry season refuge for wildlife migrating from the Maasai-Amboseli ecosystem and dispersing over the Athi-Kapiti plains and the Kitengela corridor. It is said that at one time, elephants from Amboseli passed through these corridors to the Aberdares and Mt. Kenya areas.

Human land use changes have long since erased these corridors, however. Today, Nairobi National Park is the country’s most successful Rhino Sanctuary.

Nairobi National Park is still a huge and protected expanse of green space close to the city that serves a vital role in recreation and conservation education for young Kenyans. It also provides critical ecosystem services such as purifying the air and sequestering carbon and plays a major economic role as one of the most commercially viable conservation areas in Kenya.

http://na.unep.net/atlas/datlas/sites/default/files/unepsiouxfalls/atlas...

Reimaging the park
http://www.thenatureofcities.com/2013/04/03/reimagining-nairobi-national...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nairobi_National_Park

Tree planting partnership
Speaking during a tree planting ceremony at the Nairobi National Park, Kenya Red Cross Society Secretary General, Abbas Gullet confirmed that 2,350 volunteer youths have already been trained to establish and mange tree nurseries.

The Government in partnership with the Kenya Red Cross plans to grow 10 billion trees come 2030 across 47 counties in the country, through the Sustainable Environment and Restoration program.

The program is set to increase the country’s forest cover which is below the global conventional level of six percent to 12 or 16 percent in the next five years.

Environment, Water and Natural Resources Cabinet Secretary Judi Wakhungu says that the environment is the foundation of any development and through this initiative the ecosystem restoration will be enhanced.

“The government’s commitment is to restore our environment especially our water catchment areas and also our water towers. What we have tried to do is to partner with a number of organisations, we are very good at making the policy but we do struggle sometimes at implementing so therefore the innovative partnership with Red Cross will allow us to be more effective on the ground,” she said.

Commenting on this initiative Joseph Wahome has calculated that In order to plant 10 billion trees by 2030, they will need to plant about 20 (twenty) trees every ticking SECOND for the next 16 years, day and night, without holiday or weekend off. Every single day (24 hours), they will need to be planting 1,736,111 trees. I would like to know how they intend to do this, consistently, for 16 years, without taking breaks even during elections, or Christmas, or rainy seasons.
http://mobile.nation.co.ke/news/Ministry-launches-project-to-plant-10-bi...

Kenya: Cultural Ecology Map 1
updated 08/2014 by Resilience Wales