May 12, 2026
Kenya is losing its forests at an alarming rate. According to a 2024 report by the Kenya Forest Service (KFS), the country sheds over 84,000 hectares of forest cover annually due to deforestation, with an additional 15,000 hectares lost to forest degradation. That’s nearly 1.5 times the size of Nairobi City County vanishing each year, along with critical ecosystems, rainfall patterns, and the backbone of rural food security.
The economic toll of this loss is staggering, with environmental damage, declining agricultural productivity, and increasingly frequent natural disasters costing the country an estimated KSh 534 billion each year. Longer droughts, flash floods, dwindling biodiversity, reduced river flows, and declining crop yields have become hallmarks of this shifting climate.
The impact is felt most acutely in rural Kenya, where communities rely heavily on rain-fed agriculture and forests serve as vital water towers. Major rivers such as the Tana and Athi draw their strength from forested catchment areas. As these forests disappear, water sources dry up, threatening agriculture, livestock, hydropower, and urban water systems.