- National Assembly’s Procedure and House Rules Committee wants MPs to repeal Section 34(2) of the Forest Conservation and Management Act of 2016.
- The section compels those agitating to have boundaries of protected forests to seek concurrence from KFS.
Image: ACK OWUOR
The Kenya Forest Service has termed proposals to remove its powers to sanction the variation of public forest boundaries or their excision as sinister.
KFS is agency responsible for the conservation and management of Kenya’s forest resources base.
It says the Forest Act of 2016, and in particular, Section 34(2), was carefully drafted to respond to the wanton destruction of forests experienced in Kenya in the 1990s and the 2000s, largely due to excisions of public forests.
KFS manages 6.4 million acres of forests and helps counties manage another 4.2 million acres.
National Assembly’s Procedure and House Rules Committee wants MPs to repeal Section 34(2) of the Forest Conservation and Management Act of 2016.
The section compels those agitating to have boundaries of protected forests to seek concurrence from KFS.
This means that KFS will lose a say in the excision or alteration of protected forest boundaries.
The changes are contained in Forest Conservation and Management (Amendment) Bill, 2021.
KFS sees ill motive in the proposed amendments as it is coming at a time various MPs have been agitating to have sections of protected forests hived off and handed to the electorate.
A number of leaders, including MPs and Governors, have been agitating to have boundaries for protected forests altered in order to settle landless members of the public.
Some of the forests targeted include portions of Mau Complex, Ngong Road, Kamiti, Kiambu, Ngong hills and Mount Elgon.
Other forests are Embobut, Marmanet, Turbo, Bahati, Chepalungu, Arabel forest in Mochongoi and Nyangweta forest in Kisii, among others.
KFS board chairman Peter Kinyua says the section proposed for amendment protects public forests from boundary variations and excisions that would otherwise endanger forests and their rich biodiversity.
It also protects water catchment areas that are critical for environmental stability, human well-being and economic development in the country.
“The current law requires KFS to make technical recommendations to Parliament on the effects of any proposed forest boundary variation or excision on endangered, rare and threatened species and the ecologically sensitive areas,” Kinyua says.
Kinyua says KFS is required to ensure that any proposed variation of forest boundary is approved by the Local Forest Conservation Committees, has undergone Independent Environmental Impact Assessment and full public participation.
“This is the section that has enabled KFS to protect the existing public forests for provision of water, conservation of biodiversity and supply of other forest goods and services.”
Kinyua says removing the proposed section will spell doom for the country.
“It will reverse the gains made over the past 15 years in restoring our public forests and water catchment areas, compromise the protection of these forest and thus deny Kenyans access to these forest goods and services which are critical to their survival,” he says.
Section 34 (1) of the Forest Conservation and Management Act, 2016 says that any person may petition the National Assembly or the Senate, for the variation of boundaries of a public forest or the revocation of the registration of a public forest or a portion of a public forest.
The Act says a petition made under subsection (1) will be considered in accordance with the provisions of the petitions to Parliament (Procedure) Act and the Standing Orders of the relevant House.
Section 35 of the Act says that upon the recommendation of KFS or the relevant county government, the Cabinet Secretary may, by notice in the Gazette, declare any community or private forest, which in the opinion of the Service is mismanaged or neglected, to be a provisional forest.
Forests in the country provide immense benefits.
According to a report by UNEP, Kenya’s water is highly dependent on Kenya’s five Water Towers, which together encompass more than a million hectares of montane forests.
The report on the role of forest for the Kenyan economy 2021 says the total water yield from the Water Towers could be more than 15,800 million cubic meters per year, which is more than 75 per cent of the renewable surface water resources of Kenya.
It says Kenya’s Water Towers are highly vulnerable to deforestation.
Timber, fuelwood and charcoal are being harvested to provide poor people with immediate and significant cash incomes, as well as productive land.
The report says these constitute significant economic incentives favouring deforestation.
However, deforestation also incurs severe economic costs on the economy of Kenya.
Not only does it adversely affect Kenya’s water yield and thus water-dependent sectors, but it also affects a range of other economic sectors.
These sectors are the agriculture, forestry, fishing , electricity and water.
Others sectors include hotels and accommodation sector, public administration and defence.
The report says deforestation in the Water Towers affects the economy through a set of ecosystem services defined by the Millennium Ecosystems Assessment (MEA, 2005) as regulating services.
In 2005, the UN-led Millennium Ecosystem Assessment proposed a radical new framework for the analysis of the interface between ecosystems and the economy.
It provided a framework to structure the quantification of the value of ecosystem services from natural assets to the economy.
The UN report defines four categories of ecosystem services: provisioning services, cultural services, regulating services, and supporting services.
Provisioning services cover the renewable resources that are most directly consumed and that generally have well-defined property rights.
Cultural services capture many of the non-use (or passive use) values of ecological resources such as spiritual, religious, aesthetic, and inspirational wellbeing.
The report says irrigation agriculture, forestry, fishing, hydropower, and tourism are economic sectors that depend upon ecosystem services such as freshwater, forest products, fish stocks and the aesthetic appeal of the Kenyan landscape.
The above are examples of provisioning and cultural services.
These services are highly tangible and their economic importance is easily recognisable.
The report says it is therefore important that the country manages its natural assets with a view to increasing the country’s economic resilience.
(edited by Amol Awuor)