Forests moratorium bad for economy, says CS Tuya

Destruction of forests in many parts of the country has nothing to do with the recent lifting of the logging ban by President William Ruto, Environment Cabinet Secretary Soipan Tuya has said, even as the High Court yesterday halted the lifting of the ban.

Tuya explained that the lifting of the ban on logging only applies to commercial forests and not indigenous forests.

“We have a total of two million hectares of gazetted forests in this country. Commercial plantations are only 150,000 hectares or about five per cent of the total gazetted forest. The ban was only lifted on commercial forest,” said Tuya (pictured).

When she appeared before the Senate plenary yesterday, the CS said the ban had affected the economy and resulted in massive losses to saw millers.

“We have a demand for timber products in this country. We have a market for wood, which is doing extremely poorly. We are doing importation right, left and centre even for toothpicks and that has implications to the economy,” she said.

According to the CS, out of the 150,000 hectares of gazetted commercial forests, only 5,000 hectares can be harvested every year.

“It has an implication on job creation. It has an implication on how we want to build our country. Commercial forestry sector is one such sector that we must recast, which is a big contributor to our GDP,” she said.

By lifting of the ban on logging, the government has been accused of opening the floodgates for destruction of forests.

But Tuya stated that the State had a compressive replanting programme to replace the trees that have been harvested.

“Logging ban was imposed in 2018 and it has caused colossal loses to our saw millers. It has caused a huge degradation of our forestry component of our economy,” she said.