Microclimate

Kenyan president William Ruto has lifted a six-year ban on logging, despite public objections. Ruto said it would create jobs and boost economic growth. Lisa E. Fuchs has studied the Mau Forest Complex, one of Kenya’s most important – and most threatened – forests. She unpacks the implications of this decision.

Why is the lifting of Kenya’s logging ban controversial?

• First, who is included and who is not, and why and how these actors will be supported to re-orient themselves sustainably.
• The same applies for lifting a logging ban.
• Kenya’s latest logging ban was introduced in 2018.
• Environmentalists have argued that lifting this latest ban risks reversing the gains made in recent years to improve Kenya’s tree cover.
• The Kenyan state has historically viewed and dealt with forests in terms of production and economic development, rather than biodiversity and conservation.

How have previous logging bans in Kenya played out?

• A similar ban – or rather, a three-month moratorium that was never officially lifted – existed between 1999 and 2011.
• It restricted them from legal logging, denying them access to public forests.
• Corruption played a part in forest destruction by both big timber companies and small-scale saw millers.
• The Kenya Forest Service has repeatedly been named in this context in both academic and public inquiries, including a 2018 investigation.

What is the current political context?

• Ruto has been under tremendous pressure since he took office in September 2022.
• Sending a message about creating jobs can be read as an attempt to address people’s worries related to the economy.
• Redistributing access to and benefits from the country’s forests might speak to many rural people and communities who are dependent on forest commodities – and to their political representatives.

What’s the way forward?

• Ruto must also address the speculation over the lifting of the logging ban.
• The environment ministry recently said the ban had been lifted only in commercial forests.
• Sustainable forest management (which includes both forest production and forest conservation) is not impossible or awfully complicated – at least when it’s not politicised.