How a group in Kenya is preserving its pollinators
Every December to March, Martin Lele gets up before dawn and treks into the Mau Forest of Eastern Kenya. He and other members of the Ogiek tribe, a community indigenous to the forest, are going to harvest honey from log hives they hang in the trees. With burning piles of moss and dry cedar bark, they smoke out the bees and collect the liquid gold. It has been their way of life for centuries, and unfortunately, it鈥檚 threatened.
According to the聽, the聽聽has been reduced by three-quarters of its natural size by deforestation. For the聽, one of Kenya鈥檚 oldest hunter-gatherer communities, destruction of the forest means destruction of their home and way of life.
鈥淚t鈥檚 been our cultural livelihood since our forefathers. It is our staple food, the honey,鈥� Lele says.
The community is trying to revive the forest by planting new trees and collaborating with the聽聽to protect what鈥檚 left.
鈥淪ince they want to always have the honey, they don鈥檛 have any options, they have to take care of the forest, because, without the forest, that means no bees and no honey,鈥� says Samson Kiiru Ngugi, Coordinator of the聽. 鈥淚t is their identity.鈥�
Food Tank had the opportunity to speak with Martin Lele, Producers Coordinator for the presidium and Chairperson for the Macodev Cooperative in Marioshoni, Kenya, about saving his ancestral land and his love of bee stings.聽
Food Tank (FT): Can you tell me about the Ogiek community?
Martin Lele(ML):聽We are a community of hunter-gatherers and beekeepers. With our local groups of beekeepers of the Ogiek community, we came up with a community-based organization called Macodev. It is an umbrella organization, and also it鈥檚 a collecting point of all honey harvested by our beekeepers. We started about three years ago, and according to our local groups, we have about 349 members. We use only cultural log hives. They are not modern. We put them in the interior of the natural forest, so our honey is pure organic.
FT: What are the biggest challenges that your organization faces?
ML:聽It is the market and also a lack of new equipment for refining because if we have customers who want large quantities of honey, we cannot do that at this time.
FT: How much honey does the community produce?
ML:聽When the harvest is good or when we have a good flowering season, we might even harvest over 50 tons, up to 100 tons.
FT: You coordinate the beekeepers in the community for the Slow Food presidium. Are you a beekeeper as well?
ML:聽I have my hives as an individual, and also we have the ones of our group. In our community, from eight to ten years old, you are taught how to harvest the honey. Being raised, you are stung by the bees.
FT: The Mau Forest has already been partially destroyed. How does the community work to protect the forest in which they live and work?
ML:聽There was that issue of destruction of the forest, but our government had a plan of restoring the famous Mau. We came together as a community and had an agreement. We came up with a Community Forest Association as a group, which will monitor how the forest will be saved, collaborating with the Kenya Forest Service. We do not destroy forest because it is our livelihood. We have a very unique way of harvesting honey. We have started even planting trees鈥攂ut not exotic trees, natural trees鈥攁nd we have given some seedlings to our groups and given some knowledge of how to restore the forest.
FT: Can anyone still develop in the area of the Mau Forest?
ML:聽Since we came up with this agreement of the Community Forest Association as a group, making sure that the forest is restored and collaborating with the Kenya Forest Service, we have planned to make sure that only those who are allowed can enter the forest.
FT: How do you use the honey?
ML:聽First of all, we use our honey as a food, and we can use the honey to make local beer. And also in our marriages, the first thing to take to your in-laws is honey. All our medicine is related to honey-making.
FT: Are you immune to bee stings?
ML:聽Oh, they鈥檙e our friends. They鈥檙e our friends. It stings. It stings. It stings. It鈥檚 our traditional life. Woah! I love it. I can鈥檛 stay two weeks without being stung by a bee.
This story originally appeared on .
