Kenya: New laws to safeguard environment
No commentsKenyan Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka has proposed the entrenchment of clearly defined laws into the country’s constitution to ensure proper conservation of the environment.
Mr. Musyoka told participants at the second World Congress of Agroforestry in Nairobi that this would make everyone more concerned about and responsible in how they use the environment.
Kenya is currently facing major food, water and energy crises, which experts say are linked to environmental degradation and climate change.
“As we concretize the idea of a constitution for this country by hopefully next year, and in recognition of the seriousness of disappearing forests in farms and our water towers,” Mr. Musyoka said, “Kenya should now begin to think in terms of writing conservation in our constitution so that everyone will grow up thinking that if you have an acre of land, at least a quarter of it can be put to afforestation.”
He added: “This will quickly get us out of the crisis.”
In a speech read for him by his deputy, President Mwai Kibaki also told the over 1400 participants at the Congress that the government was in the process of developing appropriate legislation to ensure that ten percent of agricultural land is put under agroforestry.
The government had also commenced an “aggressive reforestation campaign” to conserve the country’s natural forests.
“These interventions require a lot of seedlings as well as sufficient resources to enforce the legislation,” said Musyoka.
Currently the law mandates the National Environmental Management Authority (NEMA) to manage the environment while the Kenya Forest Service is charged with the protection of the country’s forests. Both have been criticized as “toothless dogs” as wetlands and forests continue to be destroyed under their very noses.
The World Congress of Agroforestry is taking place in Nairobi at a time when national attention has been on the Mau Forest complex, the largest water tower in the country. The Mau is the source of 12 rivers, which feed at least five lakes. The destruction of the forest has been blamed for the drying up of rivers and lakes. The government’s plans to evict thousands of people who settled in the forest illegally have met resistance from politicians from the Rift Valley, including ministers and Members of Parliament.
Kenya’s forest cover stands at less than two percent, way below the recommended 10 per cent per country.
Nobel Laureate Wangari Maathai, the founder of the Green Belt Movement, says besides taking responsibility, all must prepare themselves to deal with the consequences of a destroyed environment.
“We may blame climate change, failure of rains and crop failure, but it’s extremely important for us to remember that we have an opportunity at this time especially because of the crisis to convince everyone to protect forests,” she said at a press conference on the sidelines of the congress.
At the same time Prof. Maathai welcomed a new study that offered “convincing evidence that farms and forests are in no way mutually exclusive”.
The study showed that half of all farmed landscapes in the world include “significant tree cover”, contrary to widespread fears that agriculture leads to massive deforestation.
The findings of the study, conducted through detailed satellite imaging, were announced at the opening of the congress.
The Director-General of the World Agroforestry Centre, Dr. Dennis Garrity, said the government should invest in the enormous potential of agroforestry as the answer to the environmental and climate change crisis.
“A crisis is a terrible thing to waste,” he said. “It opens up new opportunities for sustainable solutions. This is where agroforestry fits in. And here in Africa, it is now too late for us to be pessimistic.”
