The rush to cash in on forests will choke us with thirst

The rush to cash in on forests will choke us with thirst

Environmental degradation in Africa is often linked to management failure and political decline. The unending Mau Forest saga is a good example. Those who support the eviction of the settlers believe their continued presence destroys the forest and the water catchment area to which the forest is the tower. While those opposed to eviction contend that the squatters have valid allotment and purchase documents to showcase ownership. So, who is right? Even more astounding was a declaration by a prominent leader that he will not give up an inch of what he owns. The big picture But Mau is just but a small piece of the bigger picture we are not ready to confront. Indeed, reports are already filtering in that loggers, who are not residents in the forest, are taking advantage of the confusion to fell trees at night.

This is disturbing news for those who care about the future of Kenya. At the same time, more forest land is being alienated and privatised. The Government is supposed to protect our natural resources to safeguard the future of the country. However, the reverse is the case. Today, due to the Forest Department’s political and economic difficulties, more trees are being felled for commercial purposes. Political failure Are we courting an environmental crisis by political and economic mismanagement of the resources? When discussing Mau and other issues we pay little attention to linkages between environmental degradation and political failure, mismanagement and disorder, or even environmental degradation through political crisis. It is precisely because they are so insidious that we should be more critically aware of them.

Thus, in Kenya, as we are fast becoming ill-famed as much for political chaos and corruption as for environmental mismanagement, there is a widespread perception that the collapse of forest management has led to rapid deforestation. Economic and political corruption is the bane of sound environmental management around the world. As the Kenyan case illustrates, the higher the level of corruption in a country, the greater the destruction of the environment and this leads to lower level of environmental sustainability. And of course Mau illustrates this more than anything else. Illegal logging As corrupt political operators, we have refused to acknowledge that the linkage between environment and corruption is alarming. The bigger problem is that money generated to manage the environment is being embezzled through corruption. We have to concede that Kenya is now facing an environment crisis.

Only 1.7 per cent of its forest cover is left and many of our major river systems are biologically dead. Deforestation through illegal logging threatens farm life, coastal and marine resources, access to water, and spawn epidemics and pollution. This is because the environment sector in Kenya is a major source of corruption as well as political patronage. The plunder of natural wealth has been the material base of oligarchic politics that promotes and practices corruption. It is where the most coveted resources are, and it is where the money is. And don’t we love money at all costs? The large-scale exploitation and extraction of the country’s natural wealth, especially timber, teems with corruption involving bureaucrats, powerful politicians and their cronies. The profit objectives of business in extracting billions worth of environment resources are facilitated through the enactment of laws and onerous treaties, the issuance of policies, transactions, permits, designation of areas for operation, sham environment assessments, and other papers. Thus, legal mechanisms are used to legitimise and process the plunder of natural resources. But it is the invisible hand of corruption wielded by the powers-that-be which makes this development aggression more expeditious. It is this same hand that protects profitable ventures, beneficiaries of corruption, and the wanton destruction of the environment at the expense of communities, their livelihood and property, and their future. Corruption makes environment laws unenforceable and violators to get away with their crimes. It also makes tools for accountability toothless. These are the hard facts that we need to face so as to resolve the Mau saga and others.