Letters

LETTERS: Protect the Mau Complex at all costs

mau

Senate Majority leader Kipchumba Murkomen addresses Mau Forest settlers: Forest excision is a big threat. FILE PHOTO | NMG

Resource use and allocation can be challenging. Bi-partisan arguments make it more complex.

Dissenting sentiments by a section of leaders regarding the invasion and protection of the ecologically valuable Mau complex pulls the country back and hurts significant strides made in environmental management through the protection of her forests.

For many years now, droughts have hit Kenya, leaving a trail of destruction and death in places like Baringo, Samburu and Turkana counties.

People and animals die because of scarcity of food, pasture and water.

The recent spate of drought is worth mentioning because the ever whispering Kerio river that serves the contiguous Baringo and Marakwet counties that had not dried before, did.

Others dried across the country. Farm commodity prices spiked. River Enkare that meanders through Narok town became a dry crust and farmers cultivating along its banks had to stop. Shortly after the dry-spell, heavy rains followed and lives and immeasurable amounts of property were lost.

No one can change the environmental evils of the past but a better future is possible through right reflection.

We should act on, not ignore, the indicators. It is unethical when a society becomes reluctant to learn from its past and make its future and that of its children better, hospitable and sustainable through environmental protection.

For long, land has ownership, use and management in Kenya have been thorny. Particularly, encroachment of protected areas such as forests and wetlands has in the past led to confrontations between security officers and communities.

Human-wildlife has also been rife over water and pasture. The recent events indicate that forest encroachment must stop.

Kenya is endowed with at least 56,914,000 hectares of land and, like her peers, the country is experiencing a population explosion.

Statistics reveal that out of the country’s total land area, about 10 per cent is arable with farming activities depending directly on rainfall; 7.5 per cent is forested and one per cent under permanent crops, year round. The remaining 81 per cent is either bare or under alternative use.

Efforts to increase forest cover to reach the internationally recommended 10 percent minimum are slow excision and invasion of forests for settlement.

Over the years, there has been a steady decline in the size of arable land per person from 0.2 hectares in 1994 to 0.13 in 2012, a trend that is largely attributable to rising population.

The adoption of fertiliser and climate-smart agriculture techniques such as irrigation and use of hybrid seeds and animal breeds has not cushioned the country from food insecurity.

As many households are faced with the challenge of malnutrition, which has propensity to spiral child mortality rates, hurt school enrolment and transition rates, the government’s ‘Big Four Agenda’ to improve the welfare of the citizenry through affordable housing and healthcare, manufacture and food security is the software that will triumph over her ailments.

READ: Court declines to halt Mau forest evictions

Destruction of water sources through excision in the Mau complex for timber, charcoal and settlement is not only interfering with weather patterns and narrowing the country’s forest cover, destroying the natural habitat for wildlife, propelling the human-animal conflicts and reducing the potential of the water towers, but it is drifting the country into a tormenting future.

Ordinarily, weather prediction should help the country plan beforehand but extreme weather has either made prediction difficult or preparedness unviable.

Over and above, particular tree species are source of food for wild animals and can solve the constant human-animal conflicts and provide us with the ecological service of regulating the weather, which is a precondition to realising socioeconomic gains as a country.

Smart policies that can ensure consistent water supply are inevitably important and this should start with the full protection of all Kenyan water towers at a time Kenyan cities are facing the problem of access to clean yet sufficient drinking water.

economist and commentator on environmental issues.