The Kenya Forest Service (KFS) has been barred from locking out timber dealers from a tender to harvest trees in two Kiambu forests, in a legal battle revealing cold fights between sawmills and plywood traders.
In the tender for tree harvesting in Kinale and Thogoto forests, KFS wanted to change terms to limit access to the forests to only plywood operators and Kiambu’s small-scale saw millers, which would have blocked saw millers operating outside Kiambu County from accessing the forests.
