Many farming families are forced to use wood, plants and grass from protected forests in an unsustainable way. In order to combat this trend whilst still enabling vital additional income to be made by the farmers, Biovision and its partner organisation icipe demonstrate how local aromatic and medicinal plants can be planted on their farms and then sold for a fair price.

Local co-operatives work closely with icipe to monitor cultivation, secure a stable selling price and process the raw materials (e.g. at environmentally friendly distillation facilities). The extracts from the aromatic and medicinal plants are used for various health and healing purposes, and are sold at local and national markets in Kenya and Tanzania.

As additional activity in this new phase traditional healers from Uganda are working closely with icipe: the goal is to investigate the effectiveness of healing plant products from traditional medicine, and to manufacture selected high quality medicinal plant products. All income-generating activities are combined with targeted environmental education: the local population, particularly farmers’-and youth groups and school classes are sensitised to the worth of the forests.