The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) Implementation: Supporting Biodiversity and Climate Friendly Land Management in Agricultural Landscapes in Kenya

GRANT AMOUNT: USD 175,000 USD

GRANTOR: Federal Government of Germany

DURATION OF GRANTEE’S WORK ON THE PROJECT: January 2019 – June 2020 

PRIMARY DESCRIPTION OF THE PROJECT

The agricultural sector is a leading driver of ecosystem degradation, health externalities, and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Agriculture also provides positive benefits such as food for humans, feed for animals, fibres, raw materials, employment and cultural cohesion. Many of the negative and positive impacts are economically invisible, hence unaccounted for in public and private decision-making. 

A major challenge that Kenya has to face in the context of the management of agricultural landscapes is population growth: population tripled over the past 30 years and is expected to double again by 2045; and under-nutrition still affects 30% of the Kenyan population today. These factors have led to a decline in per-capita food production and are described in Kenya´s 5th Assessment Report to the CBD5 as “an overarching threat to the country’s biodiversity”. Small-scale and rain-fed agriculture and livestock production remain the main sources of livelihood for the majority of Kenyans and employs 75% of the labour force. CBD AR (2015) states: “Agricultural expansion has led to serious land degradation driven by poor farming methods. Crop yields are on the decline and a high percentage of agrochemicals applied find their way into water bodies, causing serious pollution and eutrophication”. There needs to be a scaling-up efforts in agro-forestry; sustainable water management; education, training and capacity building, mainly in soil and water management; and research and development”.

The project aims to catalyse policy reforms that mainstream biodiversity conservation and sustainable use into agricultural landscapes and seascapes. By following the TEEB approach, the project brings stakeholders together to identify agricultural land use decisions that would benefit from valuation of ecosystem services and biodiversity. This would be followed by modelling impacts of land use, assessing subsequent changes in ecosystem services provisioning, and valuing them so they can be part of the economic calculus of policy makers. A core part of the analysis would be to assess distributional impacts of land use decisions, the income-poor in particular, and provide policy recommendations.