Copyright © 2000 Panafrican News Agency
October 30, 2000

The Nairobi-based Green Belt Movement has criticised the Kenya government over what it terms systematic destruction of natural forests and other catchment areas in the country.

The co-ordinator of the lobby group, Prof. Wangari Maathai, said Friday that members of the movement had visited a number of forests in the country and noticed that the government was doing nothing to prevent the wanton harvesting of trees.

"Some of my members recently visited the Nyandarua forest in central Kenya and found gangs of workers harvesting trees and being supervised by a local natural resources ministry official," she told journalists in Nairobi.

"This means that the government is either abetting or condoning the rape of our forests, or both," she added.

Maathai, a former University of Nairobi veterinary science lecturer, has won many international awards for her conservation and re-afforestation work.

In a letter to the chief conservator of forests in the natural resources ministry, the conservationist has accused the official of allowing peasant communities to cut down trees, especially those threatened with extinction, and to cultivate on the water catchment areas.

Maathai said the hardest hit area is the southern edge of the Aberdares forest, also in central Kenya, which has almost been depleted owing to uncontrolled logging. The villagers are allowed to cut down even young trees, especially at the nearby Ndakaini area, which her team visited last week.

Her conservation efforts are receiving a lot of moral support from residents and leaders who feel there is a syndicate involving a provincial administration official and timber millers.

They said the syndicate had led to the destruction of many acres of forest in the area, especially at the famous Karura. The nature conservationists said the wanton harvesting is carried out at night, and that the government official pockets an average of 80 US dollars per miller per week.

Although the severe drought devastating the country's economy at the moment is being blamed on Mother Nature, most experts contend that it is a result of the systematic destruction of the water catchment areas in Kenya's mad rush for any available land, particularly by people who are close to President Daniel arap Moi.

However, when Moi and his government were recently blamed for the failure of the rains for the last four seasons, the president said bluntly: "I am not a rain-maker."

Forest destruction in Kenya has reached alarming levels with residents rising up in arms against what they call government's complicity in mass harvest of trees.

Last week, residents of Uasin Gishu district of Kenya's Rift Valley held a protest demonstration, claiming river sources in the North Rift region were drying up due to destruction of forests.

The residents alleged that forest officials were colluding with some provincial administration officials to harvest trees in protected forests despite a ban on logging.

In 1999, the Kenya government issued a general ban on all forms of logging and tree harvesting ventures in all gazetted forest areas with a view to protect the river catchment areas.

The residents claimed some rivers flowing into Lake Victoria are drying up due to destruction of water catchment areas.

"The massive harvesting of trees in Kaptagat, Timboroa, North and South Nandi district areas, is responsible for the draining of rivers which is likely to lead to desertification," local civic leader Joseph Chebon said. Error: Unable to read footer file.