In Kenya, President William Ruto announced on Sunday July 2 the lifting of the ban on logging. It was imposed in 2018 in public and community forests to eradicate the illegal cutting of trees and increase the country’s forest cover. President Ruto reversed this decision, saying that this lifting was expected “ long time “.
With our correspondent in Nairobi, Albane Thirouard
” We cannot have mature trees rotting in the forests while the inhabitants suffer from the lack of wood. This is madness said President William Ruto. Lifting the ban will also, he says, create jobs for young people. The government has also planned new taxes on imports of wood and its by-products to favor local industry.
The ban on logging was decried by the sector. The regions that depend on it have suffered the consequences, in particular those who worked in felling, transport or even the sawmill. According to the Kenya Forest Research Institute (Kefri), 44,000 jobs had disappeared as a result of this moratorium.
A strongly contested decision
But its lifting greatly worries environmental activists who accuse President Ruto of putting profits before the protection of nature. Environmentalist Paula Kahumbu said to herself ” shocked ” on Twitter. She called for preserving native forests.
Threatened by illegal logging, these native forests are essential for purifying the air and are home to rare and endangered species, points out Greenpeace. The NGO said ” In the Army by this decision and calls on the government to reverse course.
William Ruto assured that the state is maintaining its goal of planting 15 billion trees over the next ten years.
“A shock for Kenyans”
William Ruto may promise to maintain the government’s goal of planting 15 billion trees by 2032, Hamisa Zaja, secretary general of the Greens party, the United Green Movement, joined by RFI, is not convinced .
RFI: How did you welcome this news?
Hamisa Zaja: It was a shock for Kenyans. We wonder what could have gone through the President’s head to make such a decision, because he cannot insist on planting trees and cutting them down at the same time. But he did. When he gave the go-ahead to cut down the trees, he then told the Nakuru town governor to make sure that in five years he would have planted a certain number of trees. But trees don’t grow in five years. It can take 10, 20 or 30 years. So just because you cut them today doesn’t mean they’ll grow back in five years.
The Kenyan government has stated that only mature trees that ” rot in the forests, will be allowed to be felled. Does this statement reassure you?
When you allow people to go and cut trees, you have no guarantee that you can monitor them, and you can be sure that when they go to exploit the forests, they will go with a profit-driven mindset. Whatever the tree – small, young, old – as long as it suits them, they will cut it down. So you can’t tell people to go cut one type of tree and avoid the others. From the moment the ban was lifted, all trees are in danger.
And what are the environmental risks?
One of the risks is to see long periods of drought, as is the case now, with dry rivers and lakes. At the moment we are also facing severe soil erosion, especially in the hinterland, due to the felling of trees. Only trees and their roots can sustain the earth. When you remove them, the roots are no longer alive and the soil erodes.
The other risk is the death of our ecosystem. Earlier you talked about the rotten trees that the president wants to remove, but they are part of the ecosystem. They fertilize the soil and allow plants to grow. All this ecosystem, we killed it by cutting down the trees.
Deforestation has long been a problem in Kenya. Are you afraid that he will become a plague again?
We go back. It’s a dark day that takes us back to the 1990s. Back then, everyone could go into the forest and cut wood to make furniture or charcoal and that helped accelerate climate change. Lifting the ban on logging means that we will fail to fight climate change, or even to mitigate and cope with it.
Read alsoKenya bans tree felling for three months