Sustainable tea breaks with tree felling tradition

Employee of makomboki tea factory picking at the factory farm.jpg

By: Sophie Mbugua

We encourage you to republish this article online and in print, it’s free under our creative commons attribution license, but please follow some simple guidelines:

You have to credit our authors.
You have to credit SciDev.Net — where possible include our logo with a link back to the original article.
You can simply run the first few lines of the article and then add: “Read the full article on SciDev.Net” containing a link back to the original article.
If you want to also take images published in this story you will need to confirm with the original source if you're licensed to use them.
The easiest way to get the article on your site is to embed the code below.

For more information view our media page and republishing guidelines.

The full article is available here as HTML.

Press Ctrl-C to copy

<div class="article-wrap">
<div id="article-introduction">
<h1>Sustainable tea breaks with tree felling tradition</h1>
<h4>By: Sophie Mbugua</h4>
</div>
<br />
<br />

<div id="article-body">
<p><iframe loading="lazy" frameborder="no" height="166" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/218751497&color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false" width="100%"></iframe><br />
<em>If you are unable to listen to this audio, please update your browser or <a href="https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/218751497/download?client_id=02gUJC0hH2ct1EGOcYXQIzRFU91c72Ea&oauth_token=1-16343-47894121-334d8206d82f348">click here to download the file [66.5MB]</a>. </em></p>
<p>Tea production is an energy-thirsty business. Typically, wood is burned to dry tea leaves, but forests must also be cleared to make room for plantations.<br />
 <br />
Now a factory in Makomboki, 85 kilometres north of Nairobi, in Kenya, is trying to reduce deforestation by using macadamia, cashew and rice husks instead of timber.<br />
 <br />
By doing so, it went from cutting down up to 60,000 trees a year to solely using waste biomass. But experts warn that, although this reduces waste and spares forests, the system may not be the way to go, since burning biomass still emits carbon.<br />
 <br />
In this audio piece, we visit the Makomboki Tea Factory to learn more.</p>

</div>
<div class="quick-links-wrapper">
<h3>You might also like</h3>
[related-articles]
</div>
<p>This article was originally published on <a href="https://www.scidev.net" target="_blank">SciDev.Net</a>. Read the <a href="https://www.scidev.net/global/multimedia/sustainable-tea-tree-felling-tradition/" target="_blank">original article</a>.</p>
<script type="text/javascript">
(function(e,t,n,r,i,s,o){e["GoogleAnalyticsObject"]=i;e[i]=e[i]||function(){(e[i].q=e[i].q||[]).push(arguments)},e[i].l=1*new Date;s=t.createElement(n),o=t.getElementsByTagName(n)[0];s.async=1;s.src=r;o.parentNode.insertBefore(s,o)})(window,document,"script","//www.google-analytics.com/ga.js","ga");var _gaq=_gaq||[];var _gaq=_gaq||[];_gaq.push(["_setAccount","UA-3223906-8"],["_trackEvent","article interaction","republished","https://www.scidev.net/global/multimedia/sustainable-tea-tree-felling-tradition/",null,true])
</script>
</div>

If you are unable to listen to this audio, please update your browser or click here to download the file [66.5MB].

Tea production is an energy-thirsty business. Typically, wood is burned to dry tea leaves, but forests must also be cleared to make room for plantations.

Now a factory in Makomboki, 85 kilometres north of Nairobi, in Kenya, is trying to reduce deforestation by using macadamia, cashew and rice husks instead of timber.

By doing so, it went from cutting down up to 60,000 trees a year to solely using waste biomass. But experts warn that, although this reduces waste and spares forests, the system may not be the way to go, since burning biomass still emits carbon.

In this audio piece, we visit the Makomboki Tea Factory to learn more.