It’s encouraging to hear the head of the Kenya Forestry Service call for the planting of trees for wood energy and other products. That’s exactly the right call.
We would however want to make certain that his call to plant trees on agricultural lands does not come at the expense of food production. Food security must remain a priority. Luckily there are ways to do both and do them well.
— The Charcoal Project
Encourage commercial logging to grow Kenya’s forest cover – report
Source: AlertNet
Mon, 5 Nov 2012 19:10 GMT
By Katy Migiro
NAIROBI (AlertNet) – Kenya should encourage private businesses to grow trees for charcoal and timber to increase its forest cover rather than relying on the rehabilitation of indigenous forests, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Kenya Forestry Service (KFS) said on Monday.
Deforestation is a major problem in Kenya and its agriculture-dominated economy is highly vulnerable to drought. Less than 6 percent of the country is under forest cover although the 2010 constitution aims to increase this figure to 10 percent.
Until now, the focus has been on rehabilitating its indigenous forests, which have been decimated by illegal allocations under previous governments, illegal charcoal production, logging, marijuana cultivation, livestock grazing and human settlement.
Five indigenous mountain forests, including Mount Kenya, the Aberdares and the Mau Forest, provide 75 percent of the country’s renewable surface water. Between 2000 and 2010, 28,400 hectares of trees were lost in these natural water towers, often through “land grabbing” by politically powerful people, such as former president Daniel arap Moi.
There have since been efforts to repossess and rehabilitate this land. Last year, a 400km electrified fence was built around the Aberdares and there have been high profile public tree-planting campaigns.
However, David Mbugua, head of the Kenya Forestry Service, said this approach will not solve the problem.
“If we only concentrate on replanting our protected forests, we can hardly move a notch higher than probably 4 percent,” he said at a press conference on Monday.
“If we have to go to 10 percent we have got to start growing trees – and I am talking about growing not planting trees – in our agricultural landscapes. We have to move tree growing to the agricultural landscape and do it as a business.”
He said the government should encourage investment in commercial tree growing by providing incentives, like tax breaks and waivers of fees.
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