Interior CS Kithure Kindiki has directed all persons who live or conduct activities on government forest land to vacate with immediate effect.
Speaking in Saku, Marsabit county on Friday, Kindiki said that the directive includes those who have acquired title deeds unlawfully to claim the land.
The CS insisted that the government has started claiming its forest reserves, in a bid to increase its forest cover across the country.
“There are people even here in Marsabit who have encroached government forests and I want to make it clear that all those who have encroached on government forests land must leave immediately," Kindiki said.
“We are going to reclaim all our forest reserves as we increase the size of our forests and therefore any person who is living in government forests must start leaving immediately.”
The Interior CS noted that some of the people occupying the forest reserves have gone ahead and acquired title deeds fraudulently.
Kindiki said such title deeds would not be honoured, as they were issued irregularly, and that is against the law.
“Some of them we are told managed to get fraudulent, illegal title deeds and we are not going to respect any title deed that has been issued against the law. Therefore, those who know that they are living or carrying out activities within government forest land must vacate whether they have title deeds or not because some of those title deeds were issued irregularly and unlawfully," he said.
Kindiki's remarks came as he joined Saku residents to plant trees as part of the National Tree Growing Programme.
He was accompanied by Salome Muhia-Beacco (Principal Secretary, Correctional Services), Bernice Sialal (Principal Administrative Secretary, National Police Service), Beverly Opwora (Secretary, National Administration), and the Eastern Regional Security Team led by Regional Commissioner Paul Rotich, among others.
During the exercise, each Cabinet Secretary was assigned a county from where they would lead tree planting.
President William Ruto has asked Kenyans to ensure they plant 50 tree seedlings today as a way of mitigating the brutal effects of climate change.
The President who spoke while leading a tree planting exercise at Karua forest in Maragua constituency, Murang’a, said over 200 million trees would be planted by the end of the day in all parts of the country.
The exercise is part of the government’s plan to plant over 15 billion trees and raise the national tree cover from 12 per cent to 30 per cent by 2032.
