APPLICATION OF GIS IN TRACKING ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION IN SOUTHERN VIHIGA HILLS

Abstract

Southern Vihiga Hills present a case of a complicated history of land degradation in Kenya that has over the years defied all efforts to address. As early as 1930, the Colonial Government made efforts to arrest the situation through legislative measures that would compel residents in the region to conserve the environment. As a strategy to combat environmental degradation in the area, the Colonial Government established Maragoli Hills forest through a legal notice number 266 of the Kenya gazette supplement number 28 of 1957. Other initiatives by Colonial government to conserve environment in South Vihiga hills by planting a forest covering Maragoli Hills and extending to Bunyore Hills between 1957 and 1964 were resisted by residents who uprooted most of the tress (Mwangi, 2003 ) . In 1964, the Colonial Government declared 1318.8 acres of Maragoli Hills Central Government Forest through the Legal Notice number 174, resistance by local communities notwithstanding. Because the local communities had not accepted the establishment of the forest, they continued to destroy the forest and sabotaged any government reforestation efforts. The last sections of the forest was cleared in 1996 (Nekesa, 2003 ) . Further efforts to rehabilitate the forest by Vihiga County Government have also been frustrated by members of the community who uproot the planted seedlings ( Ochanda, 2014 ) .