skip to main content
skip to newscasts

Wednesday, February 26, 2025

Public News Service Logo
facebook instagram linkedin reddit youtube twitter
view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

US strikes a deal with Ukraine that includes access to its rare earth minerals, officials say; California researchers explore crops that thrive on salt; Medicaid cuts could hurt low-income Alaskans, damage health care system; MI environmentalists alarmed about potential Line 5 emergency permit status.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Trump faces backlash for restricting press access. The Defense Secretary's ties to a controversial church spark debate, Speaker Mike Johnson struggles with votes for a budget that includes health care cuts. Arkansas expands school meals, and Western voters push back against cuts to wilderness agencies.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

U.S. farmers in limbo due to the federal funding freeze worry their projects will go unrealized, mass firings could wreak havoc on tourists visiting public lands this summer, while money to fight wildfires in rural areas is also jeopardized.

Kenyan Student Learns Reforestation in WV Spruce Trees

play audio
Play

Friday, May 15, 2015   

CHARLESTON, W.Va. - A Kenyan college student is getting ready to take home lessons he learned over five months working in West Virginia's spruce reforestation.

University of Nairobi political science major Mart Kabochi, 22, has been in the state since the beginning of the year and has worked as an intern with the Central Appalachian Spruce Restoration Initiative (CASRI). It's been a lot to take in, Kabochi said, but he wants to use what he's learned to help ramp up reforestation back home.

"Everything is just overwhelming," he said. "I have learned so much I can't even believe it myself - easier ways of planting the trees, how to take care of them. When I go back, I'm going to be a resource."

Kabochi said his time here has been "more than fantastic." Spruce restoration goes much faster than similar efforts at home, he said.

From the way Kabochi described it, it's hard to imagine more different forests than West Virginia's and those in Kenya. Kabochi said that where he comes from on the western side of Mount Kenya, it's flat, a little drier and a little hotter - an arid plain full of acacia trees.

"All the roads are straight. Like, everything is flat," he said. "My mom's house is just about five minutes' walk from the Equator. The trees in Kenya are way different. We don't have cherry, we don't have dogwood, we don't have spruce."

Kabochi said he was moved to work on reforestation by Kenyan national hero and Nobel Prize winner Wangari Maathai.

"We bought a book called 'Unbowed,' which Wangari Maathai wrote," he said, "and that did give me a lot of spirit. She's the one who inspired me."

Kabochi was in the Canaan Valley thanks to CASRI, the Forest Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy. When he goes back, he said, he will be working on reforestation in the Serengeti and in a huge urban forest in Nairobi.


get more stories like this via email

more stories
The Trump administration is mandating many federal employees work in the office full-time, which puts remote workers who live in rural Wisconsin, far from their office buildings, at risk. (Adobe Stock).

Environment

play sound

Communities in Wisconsin are feeling the widespread effects of federal cuts and some organizations are pitching in to help those who have experienced …


Social Issues

play sound

Groups working to address Oregon's shortage of affordable housing are backing a bill to fund the state's Homeownership Development Incubator Program…

Social Issues

play sound

AARP is taking applications for its 2025 Community Challenge grants and Wyoming's state chapter encouraged nonprofits and municipalities to apply…


Lawmakers estimate providing Arkansas students free breakfast could cost an estimated $14.7 million (WavebreakmediaMicro/Adobe Stock)

Social Issues

play sound

Workers in the fight against hunger in Arkansas are celebrating the passage and signing of Senate Bill 59. The legislation makes free breakfast …

Environment

play sound

People in Colorado and seven other Mountain West states may want to see changes in the federal government writ large but they oppose cuts to agencies …

About 17% of funding for North Carolina schools in the 2023-24 school year came from the federal government. (Noah/Adobe Stock)

Social Issues

play sound

The fate of the U.S. Department of Education could have big effects for North Carolina schools. While the Trump administration has discussed …

Environment

play sound

By Ashley Stimpson of Nexus Media News for Sentient.Broadcast version by Suzanne Potter for California News Service reporting for the Sentient/Just an…

Environment

play sound

In Pennsylvania, a nonprofit striving to secure the future of small dairy farms is hoping its federal funding won't be frozen much longer. …

 

Phone: 303.448.9105 Toll Free: 888.891.9416 Fax: 208.247.1830 Your trusted member- and audience-supported news source since 1996 Copyright © 2021