Establishing a biocultural heritage territory in Rabai, coastal Kenya
At a community dialogue in March 2025, 10 villages agreed to revive clan meetings and hold monthly dialogues to restore traditional knowledge and culture relating to Kaya forest conservation, agrobiodiversity, traditional foods, clothing and crafts, and traditional governance.
A Rabai community dialogue (Photo: Krystyna Swiderska, IIED)
The event was co-designed by SALT (Society for Alternative Learning and Transformation), a local NGO from Tharaka (central Kenya) in order to create conditions for a self-sustaining process to revive culture to emerge.
The Tharaka community shared its story of reviving culture and customary governance through clan dialogues; and IIED shared the story of the Potato Park self-governed biocultural territory in the Andes.
Kaya forests contain unique biodiversity and were once conserved by Kaya elders' rules. But these rules are now being sidelined due to cultural erosion and livelihood pressures.
IIED and KEFRI (Kenya Forestry Research Institute) have been supporting Rabai to address these challenges through a Darwin Initiative project 'Establishing a biocultural heritage territory to protect Kenya's Kaya forests'.