The ACReSAL project collaborates with three key ministries: Environment, Agriculture, and Water Resources. It operates across multiple institutional levels, including state, national, local, and community levels. This approach ensures that project implementers at all ministerial levels have their capacities strengthened, thereby sustaining the project's investments and efficient landscapes management.

Enhance community's capacity to manage the environment, recognizing that over 80% of environmental issues occur in rural areas. This underscores the importance of upskilling and empowering them to improve environmental management.

The integration of sustainable agriculture and landscape management practices in land restoration efforts is crucial in conserving soil and water, promoting biodiversity, and mitigating climate change. This approach also improves livelihoods, enhances ecosystem services, and builds resilience. To achieve this, we conducted thorough assessments, engaged local farmers and other stakeholders, developed context-specific plans, provided training, monitored progress, and foster policy support. This ensures a holistic and sustainable restoration of degraded lands, benefiting both people and the environment, including water resources. It's important for the community to collaborate, contribute, and learn effective environmental management approaches to ensure the project's long-term sustainability and unsustainable agricultural practices.

Effective policy lobbying and advocacy must address the implementation of both existing and newly finalized policies to ensure they meet their intended goals. This involves continuous monitoring to track progress and assess the effectiveness of policy implementation. All partners involved in a program or policy must participate in this ongoing process to ensure alignment with objectives and adapt strategies as needed.

Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) is central to ensuring the sustainability of our tree restoration efforts. This building block allows us to track the progress of tree growth and refine our restoration strategies for better outcomes. We employ drones to capture before-and-after images, providing a clear visual comparison of the impact of our restoration work. By continuously assessing our efforts, we can make data-driven adjustments that enhance the effectiveness of our conservation initiatives.

The purpose of this building block is to conduct thorough landscape assessments on the land owned by colleges and universities. By evaluating the environmental conditions, we can determine which species are best suited to thrive in these areas. This careful selection process ensures higher success rates for planting and contributes to more sustainable conservation efforts. The landscape assessment serves as the foundation for effective planting strategies, aligning species selection with the specific ecological characteristics of the land, ultimately leading to more resilient ecosystems.

Identifying strategic locations for solar panel implementation with communities involves assessing areas with high sunlight exposure and low shading. Engaging local members ensures that sites are selected based on practical needs, accessibility, and minimal disruption. This collaborative approach optimize's energy efficiency and aligns solar installations with community priorities.

Creating community-led committees ensures participatory approaches by involving local members in decision-making. These committees empower communities to actively engage in project planning, implementation, and monitoring, fostering ownership and accountability. This approach enhances relevance, cultural alignment, and sustainability, ensuring that solutions are effectively tailored to the community's specific needs and priorities. Community members would be chosen through election in their local language.

This building block focuses on developing and formalizing community governance structures to support sustainable land management. By leveraging networks, we connect various ecosystem management systems across Kenya to align resource management with livelihoods and conservation efforts.

We prioritize understanding the leadership within community groups and work directly with these leaders to engage the broader community. When requested by the community, we help formalize these existing structures to ensure our programs align with the established power dynamics and effectively address community needs.

Monitoring and evaluation allows us to effectively keep track of how the plants are doing by regulaurly studying the microsite conditions. The purpose is to gather information that helps us understand what works and what needs improvement. Continuous rese