Connecting poverty & ecosystem services : Focus on Kenya

Division of Policy Development and Law (DPDL) The objective of DPDL, a division within UNEP, is to enable members of the international community to develop integrated and coherent policy responses to environmental problems and to strengthen environmental law as well as to improve com- pliance with and enforcement of legal instruments. [...] All of the papers are available online at 1 The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment was a four-year study requested by the United Nations Secretary General in 2001 to pro- vide an overview of the state of the global ecosystems and the consequences of ecosystem changes on human well-being. [...] Maintenance of biodiversity 4. Scarcity of water and energy, and the gathering of Kenya supports abundant and varied wildlife of both wild foods add to the burden of women and chil- scientific and economic value with forests providing dren who must spend more time gathering these habitat for a large portion of the country’s biodiversity. [...] Women represent the majority of the Human well-being is multi-dimensional with many poor and constitute over 50 per cent of the total poor constituents and is closely linked with the state of in Kenya. [...] Most of the inland region Kenya straddles the equator at the southeastern edge consists of semi-arid, bush-covered plains, while in of the Great Horn of Africa, bordering the Indian the northwest there are high-lying scrublands and in Focus on Kenya 6 Connecting poverty and ecosystem services: A series of seven country scoping studies the southwest are fertile grasslands and forests of the three p