• KFS seizes lorry loaded with olive tree and cedar logs.
• Nationwide ban on logging in public and community forests to facilitate forest management and reforms in KFS.
Image: Courtesy
Illegal logging is still rampant despite the ban in all public and community forests.
A 90-day ban was initially imposed on February 24 last year and later extended to November 24.
It was then extended for a year to facilitate reforms in forest management and the Kenya Forest Service.
KFS wardens and officials were found to be colluding with illegal loggers and saw millers.
However, unscrupulous loggers are going about their work.
On Saturday, Kenya Forest Service impounded a lorry carrying 15 tonnes of a rare olive tree species (olea hochsteteri), headed to Nakuru.
The tree is used for firewood (branches), charcoal, timber, furniture, veneer, panelling, flooring and for tool handles.
The ceremonial tree in the Maasai community is also used as bee forage and its bark is medicinal.
The lorry with plate number KCD 862N was also found with logs of indigenous cedar.
The timber is valued at Sh300,000.
The owner of the lorry, believed to be a wealthy businessman in Nakuru, evaded arrest on Saturday morning.
He is believed to have been hiding the lorry in a homestead between Mau Narok and Njoro before it returned to the road.
“Through information from concerned members of the public, the lorry was seized along the Likia-Egerton road at 5 am by the KFS," a statement said.
Regional commandant for the Mau Ecosystem, Henry Peto Akudunyang, laid the ambush.
The driver of the lorry was booked at Central Police Station, Nakuru, and was to be arraigned.
The same lorry was impounded last year.
KFS urged Kenyans in the transport business not to allow their vehicles to transport illegally sourced forest products. They risk forfeiting their vehicles to the state.
“Those stocking indigenous timber at their yards also risk prosecution,” KFS said.
(Edited by R.Wamochie)