Every morning, Joyce Muthoni steps onto her farm in central Kenya with quiet determination. She moves from tree to tree — pruning, weeding, checking the soil — nurturing each seedling. Muthoni’s farm is a vibrant mix of crops and native trees, from maize and macadamia nuts to tree tomatoes, plums, loquats and over 60 avocado trees. This rich diversity has helped improve her farm’s soil health and boosted harvests. She now grows enough fruits and vegetables to both eat and sell at the local market, providing a steady income for her family.
But this is just the beginning of her day. Later, she travels deep into the nearby Kieni Forest, her hands in the earth once more. She works alongside other women in her local Community Forest Association (CFA) to care for young saplings they’ve planted, destined to become the forest’s future canopy.
Nestled in central Kenya, Kieni Forest is a lifeline for the surrounding community. For many, it offers opportunities to earn a living through ecotourism, conservation, small-scale farming, tree nurseries and sustainable timber harvesting of pine and cypress trees. Kieni is also the origin of several rivers, including the Kariminu, which supplies water to homes and farms. The forest’s many indigenous trees — including Prunus Africana, Olea Africana and others — provide cooling shade, nurture the soil and provide resilience against a changing climate.
Muthoni is more than a farmer; she is a custodian of ecological knowledge passed down through generations — learnings she now shares with her three grandchildren. She understands the rhythms of the land, the soil, the seasons, and the native species that once thrived there. She’s also part of Restore Local, a growing movement taking root to restore forests and degraded landscapes in Kenya’s Greater Rift Valley.
“I saw an opportunity not just to restore our land, but also revive our livelihoods,” said Muthoni. “Today, I guide others to restore the forest — because trees bring in rain, clean air and resilience in the face of climate change.”
A Changing Landscape in Kenya’s Greater Rift Valley
Stretching across Kenya like a vast green artery, the Greater Rift Valley is one of the country’s most ecologically and culturally significant landscapes. It harbors an extraordinary array of ecosystems, from lush tropical rainforests and freshwater lakes to savannah and woodlands. The area teems with wildlife — particularly the famous “Big Five” of Africa: lions, buffalo, elephants, leopards and rhinoceros. The region is often referred to as the “cradle of mankind,” a landscape vital in the study of human and species evolution.
Yet even with its rich ecological and cultural heritage, the Greater Rift Valley faces growing threats. More than 30% of Kenya’s land mass is degraded. This causes a chain reaction of challenges from reduced agricultural productivity to water insecurity that cost the country at least 3% in GDP per year.
Things are especially severe in the Greater Rift Valley. Years of deforestation, unsustainable land use and changing climate patterns have depleted the land and affected livelihoods. Forests and biodiversity have disappeared in some places. Degraded soils can’t support the abundance of plants they once did. Crop harvests grow more uncertain.
But hope is taking root through local restoration champions like Muthoni.
Restore Local Takes Hold in Kenya’s Greater Rift Valley
Many land restoration projects are top-down, led by international NGOs or government agencies. WRI’s Restore Local initiative changes the model by putting local communities at the heart of restoration. Research shows restoration projects led by locals like small farmers and business owners are 6-20 times more likely to yield benefits to communities than those carried out by larger entities.
And the benefits are many. Restoring degraded landscapes through tree-planting, sustainable farming and other practices can boost food production, grow farmers’ incomes, provide clean water and mitigate disasters like droughts, floods and rising heat.
So far, Restore Local has invested in 44 institutions made up of farmers, small business owners and community groups in the Greater Rift Valley. The project provides capacity building, targeted financing, effective monitoring and policy support to “restoration champions.” The impact is already visible: Champions have planted 3.5 million trees in the region, with a target of planting 5.9 million and restoring 4,700 hectares of degraded land in the Greater Rift Valley. Their approaches and the benefits they accrue vary, but their efforts all add up to one central goal: revitalizing the world’s cradle of civilization.
Meet the Greater Rift Valley’s ‘Restoration Champions’
In Nakuru, Kenya, Wezesha Community Based Organization is working closely with local farmers to restore their degraded farms. “When we first came here, the land was dry and bare, and crops were failing,” said Redempta Mutisia of Wezesha. “But we saw potential in the land and set out to bring it back to life.”
The Many Benefits of Restoring Kenya’s Greater Rift Valley
Restoring the Greater Rift Valley could unlock wide-reaching environmental, social and economic benefits, including:
1) Food security: Restoring land supports soil health, reduces erosion and boosts crop yields, bringing greater food stability.
2) Improved livelihoods: Restoration creates jobs in tree nurseries, agroforestry, tourism and conservation. For women and youth in the Greater Rift Valley, restoration offers dignified income and greater participation in natural resource governance.
3) Improve water quality and quantity: Reforesting water catchment areas and rehabilitating degraded watersheds can improve the flow and quality of freshwater to lakes, rivers and springs.
4) Biodiversity: Restoring land creates conditions for native plants, animals and microorganisms to thrive.
5) Economic development: Degraded lands cost Kenya billions annually. Land restoration can boost economic returns by improving agricultural productivity, supporting biodiversity and ecotourism and creating jobs. It can also reduce economic costs by mitigating floods, droughts and other disasters.
6) Climate resilience and carbon sequestration: Restoration buffers communities from climate shocks like droughts and floods while capturing carbon through trees and soil.
Wezesha trains farmers on agroforestry techniques, which integrate trees alongside crops and animal husbandry. The community group emphasizes the value of growing diverse trees and crops as opposed to monocultures, which supports biodiversity, improves soil health and boosts farm yields. To date, Wezesha has worked with farmers to grow over 500,000 tree seedlings, including avocadoes, citrus fruits, cypress trees, Olea Africana and other species.
“In a few years, the land will be beautiful, and the birds will come singing again,” said Redempta.
Afrex Gold helps local farmers plant avocado trees on their farms. Farmers plant the avocado alongside subsistence crops. Most of them eventually fully dedicate sections of their farms to growing avocado trees, which fetch a high price. Afrex Gold supplies farmers with quality seedlings, trainings and access to markets via their own packing facility in Thika. Once avocados are ready for harvest, farmers sell their produce directly to Afrex Gold at pre-agreed rates. This eliminates intermediaries such as brokers and middlemen, allowing farmers to earn a reliable and fair income.
With the financial support received from Restore Local’s TerraFund, Afrex Gold has expanded its nursery and now produces 50,000 seedlings annually, distributed to farmers across the region.
“Since Afrex Gold introduced this initiative here, soil erosion has gone down, our avocado trees are doing well, and we are also able to improve our livelihoods from selling the fruit,” said Julius Muli, one of the business’s partner farmers.
Paran Women’s Group is a collective of 64 Indigenous women’s groups based in Ololunga, Kenya. They are working to restore degraded lands in and around the Mau Forest, one of Kenya’s most vital ecological assets and the largest of the country’s five main water towers. In addition to feeding major rivers and lakes, the Mau Forest regulates river flows, mitigates floods, prevents soil erosion and supports groundwater recharge. Paran Women’s Group blends ancestral wisdom with modern restoration efforts in conserving and restoring it.
“We have been able to restore 100 hectares of degraded lands in our community, leveraging intergenerational transfer of indigenous knowledge,” said Naiyan Kiplagat, the group’s founder. Paran has also distributed 70,000 seedlings to 3,000 women and is on track to plant 150,000 trees by the end of 2025. Women — most of them from the Masai and Ogiek Indigenous communities —are able to sell fruits and other goods that the trees produce, in addition to their traditional livelihoods as pastoralists.
Restoration Works
As birds return to reforested hillsides, as farmers harvest stronger crops, and as water once again flows through dry riverbeds, the message is clear: When we restore nature, we restore our livelihoods and ourselves.
But no single actor can do this alone. To scale and sustain these successes, restoration champions need continued support from governments, the private sector, civil society, communities and funders. It will take a united effort to restore millions of hectares, strengthen rural economies, and secure a better future for generations to come.
“Restoration is not just about recovering what was lost; it’s about reimagining what is possible,” said Wanjira Mathai, WRI’s Managing Director for Africa and Global Partnerships. “It’s about dignity, opportunity and resilience rooted in the land. The champions we work with are lighting the path forward. Our role is to ensure that path becomes a highway, wide enough for millions to walk.”
Watch the videos below or on Youtube to meet the Greater Rift Valley’s champions and see their impact firsthand.