• Kenya's forests have been undergoing depletion at an alarming rate of 5,000 hectares each year
Kenya is among countries in the world with a fast-fading forest cover. Experts warn that unless urgent measures are taken to reclaim the lost green environment, the East African country will experience rapid desertification.
For the last 20 years, the Kenya Forestry Service has been burning the midnight oil to ensure the wanton logging in forests is controlled, and 2004’s suspension of state foresters only highlighted the magnitude of the problem.
Kenya’s forest cover, according to official data shrunk by more than 10 per cent in 1963 to less than 1.7 per cent in early 2000, and the main catalyst was deforestation.
Statistics from KFS show that by 2007, the country’s natural forests had reduced to only two per cent, with trees in only 1.68 million hectares still alive.
Despite interventions from the government and other environmentalists to cut down on logging, the activity has been ongoing and there are worries that a time will reach when Kenya’s main rivers will dry up, plunging the country into more crisis as there will be an acute shortage of water.
Early 2018, Deputy President William Ruto slapped a ban on logging in both gazetted government and community forests for 90 days, but even after the extension of the ban, cutting down of trees still continues.
The DP, who spoke during the unveiling of a 10-member task force to review forest management in the country, said “sacrifices must be made to restore the lost forest cover”.
The task force was to recommend initiatives through which disappearing forests can be reclaimed to achieve the 10 per cent forest cover as per the 2010 Constitution.
One year after the DP launched the task force, leaders from his own Rift Valley backyard have remained vocal, resisting the intended evictions in Mau Forest, Kenya’s water tower.
In October, former Bomet Governor Isaac Ruto and a host of leaders from South Rift called on the government to halt the Mau Forest evictions, arguing that expulsions will cause a humanitarian crisis.
They also claimed the evictions would amount to violating the rights of the people expected to be expelled from the land. The Mau settlers have the right to own land, Ruto said.
On October 29, Bomet Senator Christopher Langat said leaders and residents of Rift Valley were ready to block all roads within Mau Forest to resist the planned eviction of the 60,000 settlers.
“We do not want our children to come in contact with teargas. We want to do this in a proper manner because we refuse to see our people being brutally chased away from their lands,” he said.
“The courts have been compromised and they cannot help in this situation anymore. We shall be demonstrating all over within the Kalenjin land.”
He said leaders from Rift Valley will agree on when the demonstrations will be held to block the planned evictions, which have drawn monumental politics from the DP’s political backyard.
BELOW PAR FOREST COVER
Kenya’s forest cover, according to data from the Kenya Forestry Service, stands at 7.4 per cent of the country’s total land, a figure that is far below the global recommended 10 per cent.
KFS also says the East Africa’s economic powerhouse’s forests have been undergoing depletion at an alarming rate of 5,000 hectares each year.
Environmental activists have been warning of adverse effects of environmental degradation, which include climate change, desertification, flooding, soil erosion, and increased greenhouse gases if the current forest loss is not contained.
All these factors have destructive effects on humanity. In Busia, Environment executive Isaac Alukwe says his department is partnering with the national government to plant trees in already destroyed forests. The aim is to reclaim the lost tree cover.
The county’s Integrated Development Plan (CIDP) for 2017-22 encourages residents to make sure at least 10 per cent of every household’s land is covered by trees.
“Forests are recipients and partial recyclers of waste products from the environment, in addition to being a source of recreation, beauty, spiritual values and other cultural amenities,” the CIDP says.
“In the county with 90 per cent of the rural household’s energy needs met from wood, most of which comes from indigenous tree species, households need to be motivated, encouraged and facilitated to engage in agroforestry so as to plant quick growing tree species."