Roughly 160,000 residents of the Dundori and Bahati wards draw water directly from springs and streams originating in the forest, and more than 500,000 people in and around Nakuru city depend on water from those hills. Restoration has implications beyond the project site, helping to protect the wider catchment and the water resources on which surrounding communities depend. Restoration will also create paid work for at least 200 community members and benefit 5,000 forest-adjacent households, with women and youth prioritized in seedling production and supply.
The Eastern Afromontane region is defined by freshwater lakes, mist-shrouded peaks, and some of Africa’s most irreplaceable and critically threatened montane forests, where endemic species thrive. But deforestation, unsustainable agriculture, and climate change are rapidly fragmenting these habitats, placing growing pressure on species such as the Ethiopian Wolf, Taita Thrush, and Taita Apalis — species that illustrate the exceptional biodiversity and conservation importance of East Africa’s montane ecosystems.
Of the 6,789 species found across these East African forests, 504 are endemic, including rare orchids and high-elevation shrubs increasingly threatened by habitat degradation and encroachment. As these ecosystems become more unstable, the loss of keystone species can disrupt water cycles, heighten climate vulnerability, and put freshwater access for nearby communities at greater risk.Protecting and restoring forest patches such as Dundori therefore contributes not only to local water security and livelihoods, but also to the wider ecological connectivity on which East Africa’s montane ecosystems depend.
Hawsho spoke with us from Stockholm about his family's role in testing the recipes, what drew him to One Tree Planted, and why he wanted readers to understand where the paper comes from.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
One Tree Planted: What is Table of Gods, and what were you trying to do with it?
Arim Hawsho: It started as a cookbook inspired by the world's oldest recipes, written on clay tablets in ancient Mesopotamia. I say 'started' because it grew into something more over the years. The goal was always to bring ancient Mesopotamia back to life, because I have ancestry from that area. As a boy I wanted a bridge to cross to my ancestry, but Mesopotamian history was never popularized like ancient Greek, Roman, or even Egyptian history, so there was no easy way for me to connect to that part of history. Then I stumbled on a book called The Oldest Cuisine in the World by the historian Jean Bottéro, who translated the world's oldest recipes on three cuneiform tablets in the 1980s. I suppose no one had made a cookbook inspired by them because they're very brief and there are no quantities. It's really just a few sentences, and that's the recipe. That's why I work with Near Eastern archaeologists and food historians, to understand more about what people in ancient Mesopotamia ate beyond those recipes. My father has run restaurants for the past three decades and my mother is an avid home cook, so they've been creating all the recipes along with my sister. I've been doing the research and the writing and they've been cooking. It's been a family project.
OTP: Mesopotamian agriculture is partly a story about land and water management. How does that history sit with you?
AH: Mesopotamia means 'between rivers,' and those rivers are the Tigris and the Euphrates. Without them that area would probably be a desert, which is why it's also known as the Fertile Crescent. What's interesting about the land is that the northern part was rain-fed. My parents were born there, and my grandparents farmed relying on nature. They may be part of the last generation that farmed without electricity. In the southern part they had to divert water from the Euphrates or the Tigris and irrigate the fields artificially. Had they not done that, they wouldn't have been able to build the first cities. Some scholars believe it was that invention, along with the semi-automated plow pulled by oxen, that made the first cities emerge in southern Mesopotamia.
OTP: Why structure the book as a journey through 11 cities rather than by course or ingredient?
AH: I wanted the book to feel like a journey. The entire book is written in second person, so I'm guiding you through these streets, neighborhoods, and sites, and all of it is based on research or from my own on-site visits. The 11 cities are the chapters, and each one begins with a city travel guide, with a map and travel tips — like what to pack, where to stay, and what to watch out for. It's imagined, but it's imagined based on facts. And it's not just 11 cities, it's 11 cities in 11 different time periods. It starts in 3566 B.C. and moves forward until the reader ends the journey in Babylon in 566 B.C., 3,000 years after we started. When people ask me what I do, I sometimes joke that I'm building a time machine to ancient Mesopotamia.
OTP: What surprised you most in the recipes themselves?
AH: Being Assyrian, what surprised me most was finding recipes that my grandmother has been cooking for ages. There's one on the tablet with the world's oldest recipes that translates from Akkadian as something like 'Assyrian style.' It's sausages simmered in broth, so stuffed intestines, and you don't cut them and twist them like modern sausages, they're just swimming around in the pot. My grandmother has been cooking that since she was a little child, and she always makes it for Easter and Christmas. To see that those recipes have survived for 4,000 years was pretty crazy.
OTP: The book is printed on FSC-certified paper, and you visited the mills and the printer during production. Did going that deep into paper sourcing change how you thought about what the book owed back?
AH: It was really important to me that everything was FSC, because I love nature. I grew up in a wooded area in Sweden and I often go on hikes. We've seen how paper is made in action, from pulp to paper, and books are eventually made out of paper, so it's a good connection. Part of the vision with Table of Gods is to resurrect ancient Mesopotamia, and this is one step further, to also restore nature and forests. Most people have probably never planted a tree but would probably like to. Our waiting list has grown to nearly 200,000 people, so if it goes the way we hope, we'll make that kind of impact and not just a historical and cultural one.
OTP: Of the projects you could have supported, what drew you to One Tree Planted?
AH: A couple of years back I was in Venice and bought a book, and on the copyright page I read that they had a partnership with One Tree Planted. I looked it up and thought, how cool would it be if everyone who buys Table of Gods also plants a tree, and that we would frame it that way. You are planting a tree, instead of us saying we plant a tree. I think it would be nice for people to know that they are actually the ones doing it.
OTP: You've said your goal is to make the best book that has ever existed. Where does reforestation fit into that?
AH: It sounds silly to say the best book in the world because when it comes to art there's no such thing, and any artist will make the best book they are capable of making. What I meant by that is taking things one step further, whether that's the cover, the content, the way we package the book, or this partnership with One Tree Planted. As far as I know, I haven't found a publisher planting a tree for every book sold — and we are going to make that promise.
OTP: How are you launching the book and where can people buy it?
AH: So far, sales will only be direct to the consumer, because we want to control the whole buying experience, which we think will be much better than if the books were sold through Amazon. The launch is Saturday, Aug. 22, with a live event in Stockholm streamed on YouTube, on a large stage with about 400 guests, and a local bakery is making our pomegranate cakes from an Iron Age ancient Assyrian recipe. I'll talk about what Table of Gods is and why it matters, the 11 chapters, the city travel guides, the materials, the design. And I'm going to tell the audience that when you buy a book from Table of Gods, you're also planting a tree. I think that's beautiful.
