The initial stage involves holding workshops in the five forest adjacent villages over a twelve-month period. There will be two types of workshops, one aimed at educating the community on participatory forest management i.e. how to use the forest without destroying it, and the other to make rules and regulations, which shall be used to govern forest protection.

Each of the five villages will elect four members who, along with the three sitting members, which will make a total of 7 elected officials in every village.

Community Awareness Workshops

These workshops are aimed at reaching the approx. 300 KFWCA members in the 5 villages by holding 4 workshops over a twelve-month period in each village. Each workshop will be run by a facilitator, who will be an expert in a particular field and attended by all 15 members of the KFWCA committee. In many cases the facilitator will be one of the committee members. When necessary an outside facilitator will be brought in.

Topics will include:

- Kenya Forest Act 2005, namely ss 35 & 36 referring to forest management plans

- Participatory forest management

- Best grazing practices

- Bee-keeping

- Herbal medicine

- Re-planting

- Forest degradation

- Protection of wild life

- Problem animal management

- Alternative fuel sources e.g. bio-mass,

- On-farm planting

- Soil protection

- Water conservation

- Eco-tourism

Those members who attend the workshops will in turn be used to reach the community at the grass roots level through a series of informal ‘barazas’ leading to wider participatory community-based conservation. There is a need for protected area neighbours to be educated and organized and made to feel like ‘partners’ so that protected areas and species yield an economic return for local people and the wider economy and contribute to sustainable livelihoods.

Zone By-laws Workshops

These workshops are aimed at making rules and regulations through the same 7 elected officials in every village through a further 5 yearly workshops in every village attended only by the 7 officials. The five different workshops will focus on the five different zones. The rules and regulations will then be followed within their respective zones pertaining to forest management relevant to each zone. For example some zones are adjacent to plantation forests, others to grazing lands and others to indigenous forest. Each of these different types of zones requires a different set of rules governing its management. The rules shall be incorporated into the Participatory Forest Management Plan for the Kereita Forest.