Kenya on Wednesday appealed for 400 million dollars to conserve its largest forest ecosystem which has been extensively destroyed over the past two decades.
Around 25 percent of the 400,000-hectare (988,000 acres) Mau forest cover has been lost through encroachment, illegal logging and destructive agriculture, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said in a statement.
"I wish to appeal to every Kenyan and development partners to support the government's efforts to rehabilitate the Mau," said Prime Minister Raila Odinga, whose office has been tasked with restoring the forest.
The Mau forest is the source of several rivers that drain into Lake Victoria, Lake Turkana on the Kenya-Ethiopia border and Lake Natron on the Kenya-Tanzania frontier.
"The rehabilitation of the ecosystem will require substantial resources and political goodwill," UNEP's director Achim Steiner said at the launch of the appeal at the UN headquarters in Nairobi.
Odinga's office warned that "it will only be a matter of time before the entire ecosystem is irreversibly damaged."
"We are looking at securing the livelihoods and economies of millions of Africans who directly and indirectly depend on the ecosystem," Odinga said.
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