FRIENDS OF THE KAYA

A Kaya Stewardship Program, a community-led initiative integrating traditional Kaya wisdom, guardians of the sacred forest in the Southern Coast of Kenya. Combining local collaborative resource coordination and traditional rotational labor associations practices with spatially informed landscape tools and strategies and hands-on ecological restoration programs The Kaya refers to sacred forest sites found along the Kenyan coast, traditionally maintained by the Mijikenda people as spiritual, cultural, and ecological sanctuaries. Recognized as UNESCO World Heritage Sites, the Kaya forests represent a living archive of ancestral wisdom.