Protectors of Environment: Mapping and Profiling Environmental Organisations in Kenya

“Greening society towards sustainable development”, is an overarching theme of the Heinrich Böll Foundation’s Environment programme’s regional activities in the East and Horn of Africa over the last decade. Principally, the Foundation’s Environment work on greening society has been through collaboration with strategic partners like Prof. Wangari Maathai and the Green Belt Movement (GBM), as well as other partners working in the areas of renewable energy, trade and agriculture, and also through office activities like the public Environment Forums in Nairobi.

Whereas these partnerships have borne successes in Kenya and the region through enhanced policy and public discourse on the linkages between the environment and its contribution towards attaining sustainable peace, development and democratisation of society, especially in this region, the ultimate goal of nurturing a “Society of Greens” in Kenya - a critical mass of environmentally conscious people drawn from all sectors of society, who consciously act for the environment, as a partial fulfillment of the Foundation’s global mandate of enhancing public participation in ecology, gender democracy and peaceful resolution of conflict, remains unfulfilled.

This publication attempts to make a useful and timely contribution towards achieving the goal of building a strong, vocal environmental movement, especially through attracting broader participation and ownership from the often passive, discordant, uncoordinated and ad hoc voices and activities of environmental organizations in Kenya by documenting who is who in the environment sector in Kenya, since little information is available on this. This is the reason that prompted the Foundation to carry out a desk study of institutions involved in different Environmental sectors in Kenya, and compile this information into an accessible database that can be used for referencing on their mandate, mission, vision, contact addresses, activities, and coverage. This first edition is a first step towards creating some order, nurturing healthy open information sharing networks, and hopefully nurturing a vibrant environmental movement in this sector, which has very many actors doing wonderful work but who often do not even know of each others’ existence.