The Dakatcha Project.
For years, A Rocha Kenya has been working to protect Dakatcha Woodland, combining the purchase and management of land with education and community-led conservation. By helping people find more sustainable ways to use the resources around them, the organisation aims to reduce the pressures contributing to deforestation while protecting the woodland and the species that depend on it.
In July 2026, A Rocha launched a new campaign to raise funds towards acquiring more land and reaching its longer-term conservation target. To support the campaign, I travelled to Dakatcha to spend time with the local woodland scouts, photographing their work and speaking with people living alongside the forest.
What I found was a landscape where conservation is inseparable from livelihoods, farming, water security and land ownership, and where protecting the woodland depends as much on working with the people who live there as it does on protecting the habitat itself.
