•Where the proceeds of such an important forest management practice as logging would go considering the Forest Conservation and Management Fund is yet to be established
•Isaac Kalua: “We are greater and safer keeping our hands off our forests. If we can import maize and sugar, why not import timber as we increase our forest cover?”
Image: FILE
More groups have opposed President Ruto’s directive to lift the ban on logging.
They said the directive has only created confusion and opened avenues for public forests to be plundered.
The lifting of the ban allows saw-millers inside ‘forest plantations’ within forests run by the Kenya Forest Service.
Kenya’s oldest conservation group, the East African Wild Life Society, and the lobby Kenya Forest Working Group (KFWG) said there is no clarity on the forest plantations that will be affected and where the money will go.
“We further demand that the KFS publicly share its plans on tree felling, harvesting and replanting. An inventory of plantations, including details on tree volume, locations, acreage, and age should also be made available through local newspapers, the KFS website, or other official communication channels,” they said in a statement.
Speaking in Eldoret in April, Forestry PS Kimotho Kimani was the first to announce that the government would from July allow saw-millers to harvest trees in public forests.
"Before July the government will put in place the policy on how the harvesting of mature and overgrown tree plantations will be done in public and community forests," he said.
“We will not do it carelessly as was done previously because we want to ensure we increase our forest cover to required levels while allowing the harvesting in a regulated manner.”
President Ruto then announced the moratorium on logging had been lifted at a church service in Molo on July 2.
EAWLS said the government did not formulate any policy to guide the tree harvesting, as it had promised.
“As we open up our commercial forests for logging, Kenyans would also like to know where the proceeds of such an important forest management practice as logging would go considering the Forest Conservation and Management Fund is yet to be established as per Section 27 of the Forest Conservation and Management Act of 2016,” it said.
The society asked the relevant committees in the Senate and the National Assembly to summon the Ministry of Environment and the Kenya Forest Service to discuss the implementation of recommendations from the 2018 Taskforce Report on Forest Resources Management and Logging Activities in Kenya.
These recommendations address the establishment, management, harvesting, valuation, and disposal of public plantation forests.
The parliamentary committees should also insist that the KFS outline how it will deal with the saw millers who made financial commitments six years ago before the ban took effect, and account for the instances of illegal logging that have occurred during the ban in many parts of the country, for example in the Kinale area, EAWLS said.
Conservationist Dr Isaac Kalua said the value of trees must be seen beyond money.
“One large tree can supply up to four people with oxygen for a day, the older the tree the more oxygen it releases,” he said.
“Every fully grown tree matters. Not only does it provide oxygen, it also absorbs more than 21 kilos of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. You cannot put a price tag on that ecosystem service!”
Dr Kalua, a former head of the Kenya Water Towers Agency, said Kenya’s total protected government forest area strictly under KFS is a paltry two per cent, which is now targeted for harvesting.
He said the circumstances that informed the ban on logging in 2018 are still valid today.
He noted the 26 recommendations made by the 2018 task force on Forest Recourses Management and logging activities are yet to be implemented.
“We are greater and safer keeping our hands off our forests. If we can import maize and sugar, why not import timber as we increase our forest cover?”