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The Sound Kitchen

Deforestation in Kenya

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This week on The Sound Kitchen, you’ll hear the answer to the question about the forest in Kenya known as the country’s “water tower”. There’s “On This Day”, new club members to welcome, great music, and of course, the new quiz question. Just click on the arrow in the photo above and enjoy!

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Hello everyone! Welcome to The Sound Kitchen weekly podcast, published every Saturday. You’ll hear the winner’s names announced and the week’s quiz question, along with all the other ingredients you’ve grown accustomed to: your letters and essays, “On This Day”, quirky facts and news, interviews, and great music … so be sure and listen every week.

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This week’s quiz: On 7  September, I asked you a question about a very important forest in Kenya, which is known as the country's water tower. The area stores rain during the wet seasons and pumps it out into 12 different rivers during the dry months.

The rivers that flow from the forest are drying up. When the rains in Kenya stop falling, those 12 rivers which stem from the forest are the lifeline for about 10 million people.

And as they disappear, so too have Kenya's harvests, its cattle farms, its hydro-electricity, its tea industry, its lakes and even its famous wildlife parks.

Kenyan authorities are trying to remove more than 60,000 illegal settlers from the area. The authorities accuse the illegal settlers of invading the area and cutting down trees to create farmland. Chopping down the tree cover has removed the natural "pump" which keeps the ecosystem alive.

I asked you to send me the name of the forest, the forest which feeds 12 rivers and are the lifeline for approximately 10 million people.

The answer is: the Mau Forest complex. The Mau Forest is a forest complex in the Rift Valley of Kenya, which has an area of close to 300,000 hectares.  The Mau forest has been traditionally inhabited by Ogiek people, whose hunter-gatherer lifestyle is sustainable. But then others moved into the forest, looking for farming land, and cleared the land for settlement … experts say that, since 1973, more than a quarter of the area has suffered deforestation.

The winners are: Two from Bangladesh this week:  Anjana Parvin - the secretary of the RFI Shetu Listeners Club in Naogaon, and Sheuly Khatun from Sirajganj. There are three RFI Listeners Club members on the list this week: Muhammad Nasyr from Katsina State, Nigeria; Zenon Teles from the Christian – Marxist – Leninist - Maoist Association of Listening DX-ers in Goa, India and Ralf Urbanczyk, from Eisleben, Germany.

Congratulations winners!

Here’s the music you heard on this week’s program: Two pieces by the Spanish composer Manuel de Falla: Spanish Dance no 1 from "La Vida Breve", and the opening sequence from his ballet "The Three-Cornered Hat", with mezzo-soprano Clara Mouriz and the BBC Philharmonic conducted by Juanjo Mena; Scarlatti: Keyboard Sonata in E minor, K 98, performed by Ivo Pogorelich; “The Flight of the Bumblebee” by Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov, and “La Differencia” from the group Calle Alegria.

Do you have a musical request? Send it to thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr

This week’s question ... You'll have to listen to the show to participate. You have until 25 November to enter this week's quiz; the winners will be announced on the 30 November podcast. When you enter, be sure you send your postal address in with your answer, and if you have one, your RFI Listeners Club membership number.

Send your answers to:

english.service@rfi.fr

or

Susan Owensby
RFI – The Sound Kitchen
80, rue Camille Desmoulins
92130 Issy-les-Moulineaux
France

or

By text … You can also send your quiz answers to The Sound Kitchen mobile phone. Dial your country’s international access code, or “ + ”, then 33 6 31 12 96 82. Don’t forget to include your mailing address in your text – and if you have one, your RFI Listeners Club membership number.

To find out how you can win a special Sound Kitchen prize, click here

To find out how you can become a member of the RFI Listeners Club, or to form your own official RFI Club, click here

 

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