The project intends to cover Middle Ewaso Ngiro basin area in the counties of Laikipia (Mukogodo forest) and Samburu (Kirisia and Mathews range forests) with an estimated population of about 350,000 people. The communities mainly inhabiting the area are Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs) comprising of Maasai, Samburu, Turkana and Sieku (Yaaku) that are dependent on rearing livestock and hunter-gatherers. They use their indigenous traditional knowledge in many practices of solving many challenges within their territory.
In the recent years, the community have faced many challenges in maintaining their indigenous traditional knowledge on conservation of medicinal plants due to adverse changes in climatic conditions that have drastically changed most of the land use practices that have increased human activities that have endangered other important plants species. Additionally, the new modern technology has made it difficult in passing the traditional knowledge to the current generation. Covid-19 pandemic almost made everybody to be a medicinal doctor in taking different medicinal herbs as prevention measure in curbing the pandemic which it led people invading to the community forests in harvesting different species anyhow forgetting preservation and conservation for future generation and biodiversity conservation. The most commonly used medicinal plant species during the pandemic includes; Oleparmunyo, Olkokolai, Olamuriaki, olgilelit. These species were strongly believed during the pandemic as the prevention measures from covid 19, however most of them are not proven and thus needs more research knowledge and consultation from relevant authorities to avoid its misuse within the ecosystem area.
To address these challenges, IMPACT (Indigenous Movement for Peace Advancement and Conflict Transformation) is focusing on Strengthening and improving traditional ethnomedical knowledge transmission and biodiversity conservation for Indigenous peoples and local communities in the middle Ewaso Ngiro basin through capacity building and training of the Traditional Medicinal Practitioners(TMPs) in empowering their traditional ethnomedical knowledge, linking them together to government state agencies such as KEBS(Kenya Bureau of Standards) and KEMRI(Kenya Medical Research Institute) in recognizing their knowledge and certifying their end products such as packaging and purity. Documenting and conducting surveys in determining the number of existing traditional medical practitioners with ethnomedical knowledge within the target area, their mode of harvesting and their perception on biodiversity conservation.
This project will improve management of the natural resources within the basin area including water resources and forests cover which promotes the conservation of the biodiversity. This project is affiliated and linked to government policies and legislation such as; The health bill 2015-which expressed the richness of traditional medicine in terms of transfer of knowledge, skills and practices in the provision of healthcare and The 1994 convention on biodiversity policy that aims at protecting the knowledge of herbal medicine held by its indigenous folk. It expressly recognized the rights of communities over traditional knowledge.