Years of destruction of ecosystems and natural areas especially forests have led to biodiversity loss in Kenya causing many problems related to reduced supply of environmental services like water and hydro electricity in the country. The height of these destructive activities was the 1990s when encroachment into water catchment areas by communities surrounding them, illegal and politically inspired allocation of conservation areas to politicians and businessmen across the country and general neglect of conservation ideals in forest areas was the norm. Today, the impacts of these destructive practices are now being experienced across the country through water and electricity rationing across the country.
To respond to an angry mother nature’s actions like droughts, the government is currently undertaking short terms interventions such as digging boreholes across the country including in urban areas and rationing water and hydro power to address the issue of water shortage. Political talk have also focused on the possibility of reclaiming and reforesting the country water towers. However, adoption of more creative and sustainable approaches such as Payment of Ecosystem Services (PES) in maintaining, conserving and restoring the water towers as a strategy has not been suggested despite its efficacy in many of Kenyan water catchment areas especially in the highlands. The PES mechanism is important because it would not only secure the water towers in offering sustainable and increased water and sustained supplies for both domestic and industrial use. It also offer communities living adjacent to catchments areas with sustainable livelihoods options such tree planting while protecting them as supplier of hydrological flow in this water scarce country.
