U.N. Joins the Campaign against Land Grabbers in Kenya
10/28/98
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Title: U.N. Joins the Campaign against Land Grabbers in Kenya
Source: InterPress Service
Status: Copyrighted, contact source to reprint
Date: 10/28/98
NAIROBI, (Oct. 28) IPS - The United Nations has joined the
campaign against the plunder of Nairobi's Karura Forest by
land speculators commonly known in the Kenyan capital as
"land grabbers."
"Nairobi, along with many other cities in the world, is
urbanizing at a rapid rate. However, the process of
urbanization must take into consideration environmental
factors," says the executive director of the Nairobi-based
United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) Klaus Toepfer.
UNEP has agreed to provide technical assistance to the
government of Kenya "to ensure the sustainable development
of Nairobi."
"Karura Forest is a precious natural resource which the city
cannot afford to lose," says Toepfer.
Although accounting for only two percent of Kenya's land
area, closed canopy indigenous forests, like Karura harbour
form large percentage of the country's biodiversity,
including woody plant species, large mammals, birds and
butterflies.
The Karura Forest, which borders the United Nations compound
in Nairobi, covers an area of over 1,000 hectares and serves
as a water catchment area for the Thigiri, Karura, Ruiruaka
and Gitathuru rivers on the outskirts of Nairobi.
The forest also acts as an all important "lung" for the
city, helping to clear the air of the greenhouse gas, carbon
dioxide.
Kenya's opposition legislator, Beth Mugo, wonders why the
government should destroy a forest just next to the UNEP
headquarters. "If I were UNEP, I would just pack and go,"
she says.
Despite growing protests by environmentalists, opposition
legislators and the UNEP, the government, in its latest
edition of the Kenya Gazette, has degazetted "several
hundred hectares of land" in Kiambu, Mt. Kenya and Marmanet
forests.
Environmentalists say more than 5,000 hectares of gazetted
forest land is excised and given to politicians and wealthy
Kenyans every year.
Two weeks ago, about 12 opposition legislators and
environment activists stormed Karura Forests and set ablaze
construction equipment worth over 80 million shillings to
protest the grabbing of parts of the forest land by private
developers.
One U.S. dollar is equal to 57 Kenya shillings.
John Makanga of the Nairobi-based Green Belt Movement says
the "land grabbing", which started a few years ago, is done
"by well connected wealthy Kenyans, with the full blessing
of the Kanu (the Kenya African National Union) government."
He says all public land belongs to the people of Kenya and
that the government only hold it on trust.
"The idea behind degazetting policy is unimpeachable.
government may remove the land from the list of officially
protected areas only when it wants to build, say, a railway
line or set up an industrial plant, but not to allocate the
land to individuals," says Makanga.
To avoid further clashes between the protestors and
developers, the government has deployed police in Karura
Forest. "The police are here to protect the grabbers inste
of the forest," says Kenya's renown environmentali
Maathai, who heads the Green Belt Movement, after clashing
with the police last week.
UNEP has called on all stakeholders and developers to agree
on management strategies.
"This would enable all the stakeholders to agree on ways of
directing development away from these hot spots and into
areas sustainable for development," says Toefper.
Nairobi is endowed with unique areas rich in biodiversity
such as the Nairobi Park, Ngong, Oloolua and Karura forests.
"I am particularly concerned by the loss of ecological
functions and services as well as vital biological resources
that may result from the destruction of, and disturbances
to, the Karura Forest ecosystem," says Toefper.
Kenya is party to several biodiversity-related global and
regional conventions, including the Convention on Biological
Diversity signed by president Daniel arap Moi at the Earth
Summit in Rio in 1992. Part of the negotiations for the
Convention were carried out in Nairobi and Kenya played a
leading role in brokering the final text.
"In the light of the commitment of the government and people
of Kenya towards the protection of Kenya's rich natural
heritage, I sincerely hope that the integrity of not only
Karura Forest, but also other forest ecosystem in Kenya,
will be protected for the benefit of present and future
generations," says Toefper.