By Isaiah Esipisu
Tropical rainforest once extended east from the Congo Basin into what is now western Kenya. But today in Kakamega County near Turbo township, the landscape tells a different story. Rows upon rows of alien eucalyptus and pine trees stretch across the 5,000-hectare (12,400-acre) Nzoia Forest Reserve, a monoculture plantation that symbolizes Kenya’s ongoing struggle with deforestation.
Here, amid these orderly blocks of exotic species, an innovative yet controversial program called the Plantation Establishment and Livelihood Improvement Scheme (PELIS) is at work.
For over 15 years, PELIS has been hailed as a clever way to expand tree cover, boost local incomes, and foster community stewardship of forests. But it has also been criticized for fueling corruption, enabling farmland encroachment, and sacrificing biodiversity in the name of expanding tree cover.
How PELIS works
PELIS, launched in 2007, builds on the foundations of the old shamba system, which allowed Kenyans near timber plantations to farm small plots in areas needing replanting after harvests or fires.
Farmers would interplant tree seedlings with their crops, nurture the saplings until they formed a canopy, and then leave the land for the trees to mature.
However, the shamba system was chaotic, lacking governance, and ripe for abuse. Corrupt Kenya Forest Service (KFS) officers and politicians often grabbed large tracts, forcing locals to labor for free, while farmers overstayed, stunting tree growth.
PELIS aimed to fix this by shifting oversight to local Community Forest Associations (CFAs), registered under Kenya’s 2005 Forest Act. These CFAs allocate pieces of land to eligible community members adjacent to plantations.
The process is structured: In year one, farmers grow crops like maize or beans. In year two, they plant tree seedlings alongside their farming. For the next two years, they tend both, ensuring the trees thrive. After that, they must vacate, leaving a maturing forest behind. The KFS provides comprehensive guidelines for its officers to enforce this sequence.
At its heart, PELIS is about mutual benefit. “The scheme meets the twin objectives of increasing plantation forest cover and improving the livelihood of rural communities living adjacent to forests,” explains Anthony Musyoka, the deputy chief conservator of forest plantations at KFS.
He highlights tangible gains such as seedling survival rates jumping to 75-80%, far surpassing the 40% in non-PELIS areas. Socioeconomically, it has reduced poverty and conflicts in participating communities.
Currently, 85 forest stations across Kenya implement PELIS on 6,224 hectares (15,380 acres), with plans to expand. In just two years, over 8,000 hectares (20,000 acres) of plantations have been established, helping clear KFS backlogs.
Building trust and resilience
Success stories underscore PELIS’s potential. In the Aberdare Range, a WWF-led project called BENGO partnered with KFS in 2021 to revive the South Kinangop timber reserve, scarred by fires, grazing, and low tree survival. Here, they planted indigenous Juniperus procera alongside exotics.
PELIS provided the framework: Temporary land access in exchange for protecting the plantation and restoring trees. By clearly communicating rules, the initiative-built trust among communities, CFAs, and KFS, reducing damage and aligning efforts toward shared goals. WWF reports that such clarity is crucial for the scheme’s effectiveness in any landscape.
Wilfred Mulindi, chair of the local CFA, Nzoia Community Forest Association, representing 965 farmers, calls PELIS indispensable. “We understand the importance of biodiversity, but with PELIS, members earn livelihoods, which gives them a reason to protect the plantation,” he says. The reserve, managed jointly by KFS’s Kakamega branch and the CFA, features a network of roads weaving through tree blocks and occasional crop plots.
Yet, PELIS’s path hasn’t been smooth. Just five years after its debut, it was suspended in most areas in 2012 amid civil society outcries. In western Kenya, farmers often planted overshadowing crops like maize, dooming seedlings.
The scheme persisted only in potato-growing regions like the Central Highlands and North Rift, where research from the Kenya Forest Research Institute showed 75% tree survival rates with potatoes.
The 2022 lifting of the ban by President William Ruto tied PELIS to his national drive for 15 billion trees by 2032, aiming for 30% tree cover. But this goal doesn’t differentiate between diverse natural forests and monoculture plantations, igniting debates.
Environmentalists decry the focus on fast-growing exotics like Eucalyptus globulus, E. saligna, Pinus patula, and Cupressus lusitanica. These species are commercially lucrative for timber but offer scant habitat for native wildlife and impair water retention compared to indigenous forests.
This echoes Kenya’s colonial forest history, as noted by expert Dominic Walubengo, who drafted the 2005 Forest Act and designed PELIS. The 1901 Mombasa-Kisumu railway demanded firewood, leading to indigenous tree felling. In 1910, colonial laws granted the railway 5 kilometers (3 miles) of land on either side, replacing natives with exotics.
By 1942, all forests were state-owned, criminalizing Indigenous access. Post-WWII, British settlers cleared more for exports, planting exotics or crops. Independence in 1963 retained state control, burdening the government until the shamba system, and later PELIS, enlisted communities.
Today, Kenya’s tree cover spans 4.5 million hectares (11 million acres), or 7.8% of land, including 1.24 million hectares of indigenous closed-canopy forests and 152,000 hectares of public plantations.
But in places like Nzoia, a former natural forest akin to the biodiverse Kakamega Forest nearby, PELIS’s exotics create a sterile landscape. Kakamega teems with unique birds like Ansorge’s greenbul, blue-headed bee-eater, Chapin’s flycatcher, and Turner’s eremomela, under a multilayered canopy of shrubs and climbers. Nzoia, 36 kilometers north, offers little: No understory beyond farmers’ crops, and adaptable wildlife is often chased away.
Indigenous critiques and calls for change
Indigenous groups like the Ogiek and Sengwer view PELIS with suspicion. Displaced by colonial policies, their forest-dependent cultures clash with the scheme’s commercial bent.
Peter Kitelo, an Ogiek from Chepkitale in Mt. Elgon Forest and head of the Chepkitale Indigenous Peoples Development Program, advocates for natural regeneration over plantations.
“As an Indigenous community, we believe in regenerating forests to conserve biodiversity, not growing trees that allow nothing else under the canopy,” Kitelo says.
Kitelo alleges real-world failures: In Mt. Elgon areas like Chesokwo Forest, PELIS farmers exceed plot limits with KFS officers’ complicity, encroaching on natural forests and degrading hundreds of hectares. KFS then converts these to plantations, justifying PELIS expansion.
Instead, Kitelo urges leaving damaged forests undisturbed so that seeds in the soil can sprout diverse grasses, shrubs, and trees, restoring ecosystems for beekeeping, hunting, and gathering.
“You cannot compare annual income from bees on one acre in an indigenous forest to maize on a similar plot in a timber plantation,” he argues. “To address forest challenges, draw on Indigenous knowledge.”
Walubengo acknowledges PELIS’s timber focus but sees room for mixing in natives, as tried in South Kinangop’s 22,000-hectare restoration, though junipers underperformed.
The article has been republished from Mongabay: https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/kenyas-pelis-trades-biodiversity-for-livelihoods-and-tree-cover-gains/
