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Aim: This paper seeks to demonstrate how local women's community-based entrepreneurial activities have enhanced the management and conservation of Kakamega Forest. Past studies showed that Kakamega Forest in western Kenya faced rapid deforestation. Local people are often blamed for this problem. However, this paper argues that local people have traditionally played important roles in sustaining the forest environment. Method: A questionnaire survey was administered to 149 women who belonged to various entrepreneurial/conservation groups called chamas near this forest. Findings: We found that many of these women found opportunities to earn more income from forest conservation activities. For example, about 58% of the respondents were involved in the cultivation and domestication of indigenous/medicinal plants that they harvested from the forest. These activities led to the conservation of indigenous species and, at the same time, eased ecological pressure on the limited forest resources. Also, about 19% of the respondents were involved in making eco-friendly jikos or cooking stoves for business purposes. This effort reduced fuelwood harvesting from the forest. Implications/Novel Contribution: The novel contribution of this research is that it seeks to investigate how women's community-based entrepreneurial activities have enhanced the management and conservation of Kakamega Forest. As we do not yet know to what extent women networking and entrepreneurial activities have contributed to forest conservation.

Anaerobic digestion (AD) is one of the best alternative sustainable technologies for energy production and recovery from organic solid wastes. Up to now dry AD has been commercialized in the treatment of municipal solid wastes. Little information could be found on the practical application of dry AD to manure wastes or waste activated sludge. This study aimed at testing the feasibility of using alkalinity to manage dry AD system for swine manure treatment and clarify its effect on the stability and efficiency of the newly-developed prototype cylindrical digester system. A prototype cylindrical digester with a diameter of 40 mm and a volume of 1.3 liters was designed and fabricated. It was operated under mesophilic conditions (38°C). The alkalinity of manure was increased by 3000 g/L (R 1 ) and 6000 g/L (R 2 ) by adding sodium bicarbonate with the raw swine manure as the control (R 0 ). Results showed that R 1 and R 2 maintained a relatively higher level of alkalinity during the whole operation compared to the control (R 0 ). Only one peak appeared in biogas production for the control reactor (R 0 ) which almost ceased on day 12, whereas R 1 and R 2 exhibited two biogas peaks. The 30 days' biogas yield for R 2 was 276.6 ml/g-VS added while R 1 was 204.8 ml/g-VS added which corresponds to an increase by 2.7-and 1.7-fold respectively as compared to the control (R 0 ). 2.2-and 4.1-fold increase in methane production was achieved in R 1 and R 2 respectively as compared to R 0 . This difference is most probably attributable to the high alkalinity in R 1 and R 2 that stabilized the digestion process and minimized the influence of pH variations on methanogenesis.