Environment: Why maintaining a good environment management is vital yet nothing is happening!

THE MAU forest have lately been in the Kenyan new media for all the wrong things going on there pus the accusations and counter-accusations that have become all too familiar in Kenya. The Mau complex present a complex case where the need to protect a fragile ecosystem is unfortunately increasingly getting a political connotation. The politicians are all too quick to make quick bucks out of a dangerously veering environmental disaster!

 

Incidentally the third world especially in Africa  and  Kenya included have good natural resources but which they do not realize the importance of safeguarding or protecting through proper  utilization and maintenance. The rate of destruction will come to bear very negatively in the mid-term and in the long run. In the near past for instance Africa was endowed with many clean and natural streams and rivers all over. Today most of these have dried and others polluted to the extent that they are simply an ecological disaster.

 

Besides the many challenges facing the globe there are specific ones and which can easily be addressed that face poor nations out of their own psychological and physiological weaknesses. Political inefficiency and backwardness with  weak economic structures and safeguards in place have led to desperate measures which have resulted to destruction of the environment. As they do so they consign their present and future generation to a disturbed and very unsecure future hitherto they don’t foresee or fell helpless to redress.

 

Right now the global community is seemingly aware the crisis on environmental degradation with the adverse effects as occasioned by global warming. What is not clear is whether there is adequate effort to eliminate the effects and putting to a halt or minimizing the factors busy destroying the environment. The rich and most industrialized nations of the world are the greatest polluters of the world but the more severe consequences are unfortunately being and look set to continues felt among the poor nations.

 

Africa’s vast resources has remained a curse to date courtesy of the leadership problem and the massive influence and brunt of political and economic shenanigans of the West and now the gluttonous East. It remains the cheapest source of raw materials and of course a good reservoir for labour.  Africa remain the pawn of the rest of the globe. Africa simply is not addressing its environmental risks.

 

Back to Kenya and the environmental disaster in the waking. Against the global recommendations of 10% forest cover Kenya at independence had a cover of above 2% . Today it is anywhere below 1%. It is surprising that anybody living in Nairobi would wonder that the Nairobi Water company has to ration availability of water to consumers at the current period. It is simple as that nature is slowly but surely hitting back. The environmental as been destroyed beyond sanity levels. There is simply inadequate water flows.

 

The issue to consider on developing countries like Kenya is the availability of cheap source of energy. Clearly the cost of fuel globally and Kenya specifically make it outrageous to expect majority who are poor to afford. Electricity costs are also on the roof. Besides this the demand for land is increasingly leaning to dangerous levels.  We still need plenty of wood products for constructions here in Kenya and for offshore importers. Coupled with all this Forest extinction is becoming real. The Mau complexity and others which have not been brought to the surface is just a microcosm of a society slowly degenerating to abyss.

 

The point is demand for land will increase until we provide suitable alternatives for livelihood for the increasing number to the already poor that Kenya and third world . Also firewood will remain the most important source of energy or fuel for most people in Kenya both in rural and in urban centers for quite some good time. In  the short term we need to be replacing the destruction at a faster rate than decimation  of trees plus make subsistence farming less important by exploring the exploitation of modern technology and commerce as the way to a sustainable future.

 

Forest farming should be endeared into a national culture such that forestry and agro-forestry is vigorously practiced and promoted. But while at it the trend in Kenya is the farming of the eucalyptus trees for quick commercial benefits, While it is  good in commercial sense, in the long term it is not sustainable. The government and the NGO’s should be keen on the disaster in the waking as Eucalyptus is quite disruptive and destructive in the long term in terms of water availability and desertification. Besides farming trees for commercial sense there should be promotion of indigenous forest trees and other conservative exotic trees which in the long run will guarantees good incomes and conservation of the environment.

 

 

By Harrison Mwirigi Ikunda, Nairobi – Kenya

 

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