ECOSYSTEM SERVICES OF KAKAMEGA TROPICAL RAINFOREST ECOSYSTEM OF KAKAMEGA COUNTY, KENYA

The main objective of this study was to analyze ecosystem services of Kakamega Tropical Rainforest. This study was descriptive and cross-sectional in design and relied on a mixed methods methodology. Anthropogenic Global Warming Theory and Adaptive Management Theory were used to guide the study. A conceptual framework showing the interrelationship between the dependent and independent variables was outlined. The study utilized both secondary and primary data. The target population was 200 households living up to 10 km from the forest edge in the selected communities neighbouringKakamega Tropical Rainforest and 20 government officials within Kakamega County. A total of 119 members of the households and 20 forest officers were sampled as respondents in the study. The study findings revealed that the forest ecosystem was a source of many services to the surrounding community, it also had a great impact on the surrounding community. The study recommended that there is need to conserve the forest since it was a source of many services to the surrounding communities and that the forest ecosystem also helped to adapt or mitigate climate change among others.

People benefit in various ways from ecosystems and the services they offer. While it has been the subject of investigation since the mid-twentieth century, the idea itself gained most of its popularity through the work of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment in 2005 in which 1300 researchers explored the status of the ecosystem services in a momentous work (Fisher, 2008).
The findings of MA"s study was that 15 of the 24 ecosystem services internationally are declining and that negative impact on human welfare is likely to be experienced in the future. The appraisal suggested for heightened research in measuring, modelling and mapping of ecosystem services. By doing so, the 1300 researchers moved the science encompassing the idea significantly forward and stirred the desire for many that this framework would give a new and generous source of conservation financing. It started a great volume of work being conducted in the field (Simpson, 2011). The same scenario has also been reported from the temperate forested landscapes and from forests in California (Shaw et al., 2011). We are still unclear about what will be the pattern for tropical forest ecosystem services under future climate change scenarios. Over the period 1880 to 2012, the mean global surface temperature has increased by 0.85°C (IPCC, 2014).
Ecosystem services are at the focal point of the idea of Ecosystem-based Adaptation. Since the publication of two seminal studies about ecosystem services two decades ago various categorization systems were produced for policymaking, scientific analysis, and economic valuation. Four classifications of ecosystem services are now broadly distinguished (Costanza et al., 2017): supporting, regulating, provisioning and cultural services. However, harnessing these services often requires combination of ecological processes with built, human and social capital.
First and foremost, provisioning services, combined with built, human and social capital, produce, for example, timber, fibre and food. Secondly, regulating services, combined with built, human and social capital, produce water regulation, human disease regulation, flood control, storm protection, water purification, pest control, air quality maintenance, climate control and pollination (Costanza et al., 2017). Thirdly, cultural services, combined with built, human and social capital, offer cultural identity, recreation, scientific, aesthetic, sense of place, or other "cultural" benefits. Lastly, supporting services describe the basic ecosystem processes such as provisioning of habitat, nutrient cycling, soil formation and primary productivity. They contribute indirectly to human wellbeing by maintaining the processes and functions necessary for provisioning, regulating, and cultural services (Costanza et al., 2017).
Ecosystem services vary with regard to their private or public good attributes that is whether their consumption is excludable and rival. Most provisioning services are "private goods", or can at least be privatized, that is individuals or private enterprises control the means of production and supply chains (Paudyal et al., 2016). On the contrary, most regulating services are "public goods" that is goods that are non-excludable and from which multiple users can simultaneously benefit. Most cultural services consist of a mix of private and public goods (Costanza et al., 2017;Paudyal et al., 2016). Some elements of adaptation to climate change are public goods, for example, the conservation of important habitats and common cultural heritage.
The idea of ecosystem services is usually utilized these days to show the connection between the functioning of ecosystems to human prosperity (Fischer et al., 2009). For example, Ecosystem services as the conditions and processes through which natural ecosystems and their constituent species support and satisfy human life; Ecosystem services as the advantages human populace derive, directly or indirectly, from ecosystem functions; Ecosystem services as the benefits individuals get from ecosystems, and Ecosystem service as the ecological components/ items directly consumed or enjoyed to contribute to human prosperity.
Fischer et al., (2009) contend that any endeavor at classifying ecosystem services ought to be a function of both ecosystem and ecosystem service attributes. The decision making context for this is determined by the following: benefits from rival and excludable goods, spatial and temporal dynamism of ecosystems and their services, multiple services produced by multiple ecosystems, ecosystem complexity structure, process and service, and benefits dependent upon understanding of ecosystem services.
For the majority, ecosystem services is a promising strategy to look at nature from a more economic point of viewa strategy that would enable pricing of nature. The expectation is that ecosystems and their services would get a 1581 different sort of thought in the political field if it would be possible to put a hard monetary number on an ecosystem service. For instance, if it would be possible to assess the value of the water filtration that a certain ecosystem in a region provides were it preserved, this number could potentially be compared to alternative options to purify the water (Chong, 2014).
Supporters of the idea contend this would be a good method of quantifying the value of ecosystems and by doing so, it would give sound economic reasons for conservation. This line of argument is easy to follow and makes a lot of sense at first glance, but what if an assessment reveals that the monetary value of the services of a certain ecosystem is incredibly low, would this automatically mean that this environment is not worth protecting? What about intrinsic values of nature, could they be accounted for? This is one of the core criticisms that the concept receivesit fundamentally adopts a utilitarian, anthropocentric conceptualization of the relationship between ecosystems and human well-being (Chong, 2014).
Technical and ethical constraints are being ascribed to the operationalization of the ecosystem service structure in the processes of decision making (Adams and Redford, 2009). Conservationists articulate the fear that if governments and businesses can be persuaded to mainstream monetary evaluation of ecosystem services, they are likely to do their sums rather quickly. This may lead to a scenario in which diverse ecosystems that produce economic returns will be preserved and those that do not would be either converted or transformed in order to increase returns (Adams and Redford, 2009).
The discussion surrounding the framework highlights the challenges of balancing ecocentric and anthropocentric views regarding biodiversity conservation and ecosystem management (Chong, 2014). The discussion sets aside the framework and has managed to point out the essential services ecosystems provide and received international attention by communities and decision makerssuccessfully increasing the significance of nature conservation on policy agenda globally (Chong, 2014). In relation to Ecosystem-based Adaptation, Chong (2014) states that: "Ecosystem-based Adaptation, as an extension of the ecosystem services framework, similarly has the potential to inspire efforts to confront the impacts of climate change and acknowledge the importance of nature to supporting societal adaptation".
Majority of countryside households in developing countries and Kenya specifically are predominantly engaged in diverse livelihood strategies and activities. One of these ways is the extraction of forest products and it gives a substantial contribution to their well-being (Babulo et al., 2009). Other livelihood ways include trading, livestock husbandry, crop cultivation and unskilled jobs. A livelihood is defined as comprising "the capabilities, assets and activities required for a means of living" (Babulo et al., 2009). Livelihoods are considered to be sustainable when they can cope with and recover from stress and shocks and maintain or enhance their capabilities and assets both now and later on.
In recent years, the importance of non-timber forest products (NTFPs) commercialization as a technique to reduce poverty and conserve forests has become prominent (Brown and Lassoie, 2010) as the dependence of poor rural livelihoods on forest income increases. Likewise, Babulo et al., (2009), after sampling 360 rural households in 12 villages in northern Ethiopia, found that income from forest products occupied the second largest share of the mean total household income after crop income. Numerous governments in Africa also value timber production for income generation more than any other forest ecosystem services, whereas livelihoods in many rural communities in Africa depend to a greater extent on NTFPs for subsistence and income generation (Babulo et al., 2009). This is similar with the international pattern for which the highest proportion (30%) of the functions of the world"s forests is designated for production of timber and also NTFPs (FRA, 2010).
The human effect on planet Earth is increasing quickly, with regard to both scale and intensity (Steffen et al., 2011, Malhi et al., 2014. One of the significant human-instigated impact is worldwide climate change. To keep climate change within safe limits (Rockstrom et al., 2009), global leaders have been discussing alternatives to mitigate and adapt. A significant step was made during the Conference of the Parties (COP) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), in December 2015 in Paris. Here, 196 nations agreed to lessen greenhouse gas emissions and increase Carbon dioxide removal from the atmosphere, with the ultimate objective to keep worldwide temperatures from rising by more than 2°C (United Nations, 2015). Carbon dioxide removals from the atmosphere are naturally done by growing vegetation, through the process of photosynthesis. Vegetation types 1582 that store and remove a lot of Carbon dioxide, for example, tropical forests, are therefore highly relevant for climate change mitigation.
Tropical forests contribute to climate change mitigation in three different ways. In the first place, biomass in tropical forests contains about 25% of all carbon on just about 12% of the region in the terrestrial biosphere, which implies that forestalling deforestation and forest degradation can lessen Carbon dioxide emissions. Second, tropical forests are Carbon dioxide 'sinks', implying that they remove net Carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and utilize this in photosynthesis to produce additional aboveground and belowground biomass (Brienen et    Many studies refer to the key role of ecosystems in climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction, since ecosystems provide many ecosystem services, including: natural protection against hazards, climate and water regulation, carbon sequestration, and pest regulation. In addition to this, management of ecosystems increases the resilience of the ecosystems and communities to climate change and disasters (Munang et al., 2013).

Discussion of Research Findings:-
The objective of this study was to analyze the ecosystem services of Kakamega Tropical Rainforest. In order to answer the question related to this objective, the researcher sought some responses from both the members of the households as well as the forest officers in relation to this question as shown in Table 4.3 below. When the members of the households were asked if the services, they received were a source of timber, a majority at 90 (75.6%) disagreed, a few 16 (13.4%) agreed while 13 (10.9%) were undecided. When the same was posed to the forest officers the opposite was true, with all the 20 (100%) agreeing that people used the forest as a source of timber. This agrees with the views of Costanzaet al., (2017) who argues that first, provisioning services, combined with built, human and social capital, produce, for example, food, timber and fiber. Second, regulating services, combined with built, human and social capital, produce flood control, storm protection, water regulation, human disease regulation, water purification, air quality maintenance, pollination, pest control, and climate control. Third, cultural services, combined with built, human and social capital, offer recreation, aesthetic, scientific, cultural identity, sense of place, or other "cultural" benefits. Finally, supporting services describe the basic ecosystem processes such as soil formation, primary productivity, nutrient cycling and provisioning of habitat. They contribute indirectly to human wellbeing by maintaining the processes and functions necessary for provisioning, regulating, and cultural services (Costanzaet al., 2017).
1585  On the issue of firewood, a majority at 100 (84%) of the household members agreed that the forest ecosystem provided firewood, 11 (9.2%) were undecided while 8 (6.8%) disagreed. On the other hand, a majority at 17 (85%) of the forest officers agreed and only 3 (15%) were undecided.

Forest Ecosystem Service as Prevention of Storms
Agreed Disagreed Undecided

1588
When asked if the forest ecosystem service was to control floods, a majority at 89 (74.8%) of the members of the households agreed that it indeed controlled floods, a few at 16 (13.4%) disagreed while only 14 (11.8%) were undecided. On the same question a majority at 19 (95%) of the forest officers agreed and only 1 (5%) was undecided. This shows that the forest ecosystem controls floods, which agrees with the views of Costanzaet al., (2017).

Summary of the Findings:
Majority of the members of the households disagreed that the services they received from the forest ecosystem were a source of timber however, when the same question was posed to the forest officers, the opposite was true, with all the twenty forest officers being in agreement with the fact that people used the forest as a source of timber. This agrees with the views of Costanzaet al., (2017).
As a source of firewood, majority of the household members agreed that the forest ecosystem indeed assisted them as a source of firewood. This was also in agreement with forest officers who all agreed that the forest ecosystem was indeed used as a source of firewood. This agrees with the views of Costanzaet al., (2017) that people use the forest as a source of firewood.
When the members of the households were asked if the forest ecosystem was used as a source of herbal medicine, a majority of them were in agreement. This was also true for the forest officers who also agreed with the same question. This agrees with the views of Costanzaet al., (2017) that the forest ecosystem is used as a source of herbal medicine.
When members of the households were asked if the forest ecosystem is used as a source of fodder for livestock, a majority of them were in agreement. A majority of the forest officers also agreed that indeed the forest ecosystem was used as a source of fodder for livestock. This agreed with the views of Costanzaet al., (2017) that the forest ecosystem is used as a source of fodder for livestock.

Forest Ecosystem Service as Greenhouse Gas Regulation
Agreed Disagreed Undecided

1590
Again, when the members of the households and forest officers were asked if the forest ecosystem was used as a source of food, both categories of respondents agreed that the forest ecosystem was indeed used as a source of food.
When both the members of the households and forest officers were asked if the forest ecosystem prevents storms, a majority of the household members agreed while all the twenty forest officers interviewed agreed that the forest ecosystem indeed prevents storms. These views agree with those of Costanzaet al., (2017) who argue that the forest ecosystem prevents storms.
When asked if the forest ecosystem controls floods, a majority of both the members of the households and forest officers agreed that it indeed controlled floods. This shows that the forest ecosystem control floods, which agrees with the views of Costanzaet al., (2017).
When the members of the households and forest officers were asked if the ecosystem service helps in cloud formation, a majority of both categories of the respondents agreed on the same question. This agrees with the views of Costanzaet al., (2017) that forests help with cloud formation and precipitation.
When the members of the households were further asked if the ecosystem helps in greenhouse gas regulation, a majority of both the household members and forest officers agreed. This agrees with the views of Costanzaet al., (2017) that forests indeed regulate greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Conclusions:-
Kakamega Tropical Rainforest is a source of many ecosystem services to the surrounding community; timber, firewood, herbal medicine, fodder for livestock, prevent storms, control floods, cloud formation and greenhouse gas regulation.

Recommendations:-
There is need to conserve the Kakamega Tropical Rainforest as it is a source of many services to the surrounding community such as timber, firewood, herbal medicine, fodder for livestock, prevents storms, control floods, cloud formation and greenhouse gas regulation.