Experts warn of looming deserts over persistent charcoal burning

Police and Kenya Forestry officers tour a section of a forest cleared by encroachers in Rift Valley. Experts are warning that continued deforestation in Kitui and Tharaka Nithi could turn regions into deserts. Photo/FILE

Two counties in Kenya are at the risk of becoming total deserts in the next half a decade due to indiscriminate felling of trees for charcoal.

A survey by Green Africa Foundation, an environmental campaign group, has revealed that the practice has left land bare leading to deforestation, soil erosion, loss of biodiversity, and reduced land productivity in Tharaka Nithi and Kitui counties in eastern Kenya.

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