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JOIN A MASSIVE PROTEST AGAINST
KENYA DEFORESTATION AT THE ITB IN BERLIN !!!!
Even UN protests at loss of
Kenyan forests
KENYA: February 28, 2001
NAIROBI - The United Nations
Environment Programme (UNEP) said yesterday it was concerned about
the risk of increasing deforestation in Kenya after the government
announced its intention to clear forest land for settlement.
Earlier this month Kenya’s
Environment Minister Francis Nyenze gave 28-days notice of intent
to allocate 68,000 hectares (167,000 acres) of forest land in 14
locations around Mount Kenya, in the Rift Valley and in Western
Kenya for settlement.
Environmentalists blame last
year’s drought in Kenya - the worst in four decades - partly on
widespread deforestation in water catchment areas, and the
non-governmental organisation, the Green Belt Movement, has vowed
to fight the latest allocation of forest land.
UNEP Executive Director Klaus
Toepfer said in a statement he was “concerned about the risk of
increasing deforestation in Kenya”.
“Forests are the earth’s green
lungs, helping to remove carbon dioxide and other pollutants from
the atmosphere,” he added. “They also stabilise soils,
reducing the risks of erosion and run off into rivers and are in
many cases home to a rich variety of wildlife and indigenous,
forest-dwelling peoples.”
While the government earlier this
year said it would put environmental issues at the top of its
agenda, extending a ban on logging and allowing importation of
timber, it appears to be going back on its word.
Critics say the allocation,
amounting to around 10 percent of Kenya’s remaining forests, is
a ploy to buy support for the ruling party ahead of next year’s
general elections.
There is also concern about the
impact on one of Kenya’s last remaining hunter-gatherer
communities, the Ogiek, who live in the Mau forest in Rift Valley
province.
UNEP has its global headquarters in
Nairobi next to one of the few remaining stretches of forest land
around the city, and has been criticised in the past for remaining
silent when plots of forest land there and elsewhere were
parcelled out for development.
REUTERS NEWS
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