The article was published by Ms. Julia Graven in 2050 Magazine.
The grey-necked crowned crane is considered a lucky charm in Kenya. It watches over the health of people and livestock, it is said. For Selina Napong’odia and the other women in the village of Bahati, however, the bird was rather the last hope. Their children went to school hungry, because the families had no money for fertilizer – and without it, nothing grew on the poor soils. So they went hunting for breeding cranes on the shores of nearby Lake Ol’Bolossat. They ate the protected animals and their eggs.
Selina thanks God that the starvation and poaching are over. In rubber boots and a fleece jacket, she sits on a light blue plastic chair in front of a webcam in the morning sun. Behind her, hundreds of small spinach plants sway in a field in the gentle wind. Next to it, cabbage grows, a field is full of carrot green, and on the right edge of the picture, the stems of beetroot peek out of the ground. The fact that the community garden looks so magnificent and nourishes the village despite the nutrient-poor soils is also thanks to the German aid organization Char2Cool.
She was called in by local bird conservationists and showed the people in the village how they use self-made biochar to upgrade the soil so that they can be fed by their own vegetables – and leave the cranes alone.
In the Amazon basin, indigenous peoples have known for countless generations that charcoal from plant residues, together with compost and animal excrement, makes soils fertile. They use it to produce Terra Preta, a black, nutrient-rich soil that binds microorganisms, stores water even in dry periods and ensures that new humus is formed. Fields fertilized with biochar are even considered so-called carbon sinks, which could slow down climate change because they keep carbon in the soil in the long term. In Bahati, biochar not only helps the soil, but also the lake. It is made from “Salvinia molesta”, an invasive weed that overgrows the shore in dense mats and displaces the reeds in which the cranes usually breed.
In the meantime, families harvest enough for their own needs in their home gardens. They sell the vegetables from the community field at the market in the district town of Ol’Kalou. Selina has used her share to afford the first mobile phone of her life. With it, she now organises the vegetable trade as a spokesperson for the women.
