•The tree cover stands at 12.13 per cent while the forest cover stands at 8.83 per cent from 5.99 per cent in 2018.
•KFS says threats emanating from the reliance on fuel wood and charcoal risk wiping out the gains that have been made so far.
The livelihoods of forest adjacent communities must be improved to reduce their dependency on forest resources, Kenya Forest Service says.
KFS says the dependency of forest adjacent communities on forest resources risk watering down gains made so far.
KFS Chief Conservator Julius Kamau says poverty was the main driver of some of the illegalities.
“People are driven by poverty to find themselves doing certain activities. There is a need to broaden their livelihoods so that they reduce dependency on these resources. KFS is also about strategies that ensure that those trees remain standing,” Kamau says.
KFS protects 6.4 million acres of gazetted forests and another 420 million acres under counties.
Kamau said if not checked, the continued reliance on forest resources could threaten strides made so far.
Article 69 (1) (b) of the Constitution Kenya 2010 requires the Country to increase and maintain tree cover at a minimum of 10 per cent of the total land area.
Moreover, Kenya Vision 2030 places the environmental sector in the social pillar and emphasizes the need to conserve natural resources to support economic growth.
The 10 per cent tree cover has however been surpassed and it now stands at 12.13 per cent while the forest cover stands at 8.83 per cent from 5.99 per cent in 2018.
Kamau says efforts must be put into addressing some of the challenges experienced by forest adjacent communities even as the service works towards achieving a new target of 30 per cent tree cover by 2050.
The forest cover stood at 6.99 per cent in 2013 but declined to 5.99 per cent in 2018.
The CCF said a lot went into enhancing the tree cover as well as the forest cover.
As such, all efforts must be put in place to ensure that the momentum is maintained.
Some of the efforts, he said, include partnering with government agencies; community forest associations as well as initiatives such as adopting a forest.
Under adopt a forest, 104 partners joined in the drive to replant trees within a given period of time.
Out of the 104 partners, 54 were state departments.
About 60 entities have adopted more than 60,000 acres in the last three years.
Forests play critical ecological, economical and sociocultural roles.
They contribute 3.6 per cent to Gross Domestic Product, excluding environmental services and contributions to other sectors.
Forests support all aspects of life, apart from being the most important source of energy.
They also support key sectors of the economy in the water, agricultural, energy (hydro), manufacturing and tourism sectors, among others, while also regulating our environment by sequestering carbon to give clean air.
Despite their significance, forests are under pressure from various threats.
These include a change in land use, population pressure, impacts of climate change and forest ecosystem degradation. Others are deforestation, inadequate financing and over-dependence on forest resources for livelihoods by forest-adjacent communities.
In 2015, the forest cover was estimated at 7.2 per cent based on the national projection from the 2010 forest cover data.
This is according to the Global Forest Resources Assessment Report, 2015.
Some of the challenges that KFS wants to be addressed include the use of fuel wood and charcoal which often lead to over-exploitation of forest resources.
Kenya consumes between 1.6 and 2.4 million tonnes of charcoal annually.
The current demand for wood products in the country has hit 45 million cubic metres against a supply of 30 million.
An analysis of the demand and supply of wood products by the Environment Ministry in 2013 showed that Kenya had a wood supply potential of 31.4 million cubic metres against a national demand of 41.7 million cubic metres.
This left a deficit of 10.3 million cubic metres.
The study showed that timber, poles, firewood and charcoal supply stood at 7,363,414 cubic metres, 3,028,907 cubic metres, 13,654,022 cubic metres and 7,358,717 cubic metres respectively.
The demand for timber, poles, firewood and charcoal stood at 5,262,624 cubic metres, 3, 1,409,482 cubic metres, 18,702,748 cubic metres and 16,325,810 cubic metres respectively.
Forecasts for a 20-year period indicated a 20.0 per cent increase in supply and a 21.6 per cent increase in demand by the year 2032 which signifies a gradually increasing deficit.
Kamau said there is a need to appreciate the drivers of charcoal burning.
“When the fuel prices go up and kerosene, when LPG gas goes up, it means some people will retreat back to the natural way of generating energy and that is charcoal and fuel wood. It is not something that exists in a vacuum; it is affected by other policies and changes within the country,” he said.
The CCF said KFS is working with communities and NGOs to find solutions to some of the challenges like biogas for instance in Eburu.
Kamau said KFS and the Ministry are also engaging partners including World Wide Fund for Nature which is supporting a project within Kilimanjaro East by providing
“This project is supporting communities with bee hives through KFS. This is purely to ensure that the livelihoods of the communities are improved and their dependency on forest resources is managed,” he said.
Kamau said the safety of forest resources will not be guaranteed if authorities fail to mind people’s livelihoods.
The CCF said the technology used to access the forest and tree cover was state-of-the-art.
He said the assessment is the first to be done in the history of the country.
“Forest cover has been assessed before but not with efficient and high-resolution satellite imageries than we got this time. Before that, we have been using 30 by 30 meters, then 10 by 10 meters.”
Kamau said they were to access at the level of 0.3 meters by 0.3 meters, which is very high resolution.
“Any tree with a canopy of about two years was captured in that statistic,” he said.
Kamau said there are about 5.2 million hectares of land under forest and about 7.2 million hectares under tree cover.
He said the recent results provide baseline statistics that will be used to inform decision-making.
Kamau said counties will use the results in their Key Performance Indicators adding that the results will be mainstreamed within their manifesto so that even the public can hold them to account.