Encroachment of Mau Forest and illegal logging has come to hit the nation in dismay ~ Hon Soipan Kudate

Encroachment of Mau Forest and illegal logging has come to hit the nation in dismay.

Hon. Soipan Tuya ,Narok County MP brought parliament into attention on the need to conserve and reclaim back the forest and other natural resources without necessarily having to politicize the matter.

Below is her excerpt from parliamentary contributions that she made  on 20th February 2018.

...I rise to support this very important policy on climate finance. The benefits for Kenya from the policy direction we are taking have been spoken to by the people who have spoken before me.

First and foremost, the issue of protecting our environment and dealing with the adverse effects of climate change is a direct protection and safeguard of some of the very critical principles of our Constitution of 2010, key of which is the need for us to have a certain minimum threshold of forest cover in our country.

Currently, statistics are very dismal. I know we are below two per cent yet the threshold we have set for ourselves, as a nation, stands at 10 per cent.This Policy will go towards supporting our Vision 2030 in terms of increasing our adaptive capacity and resilience to climate change. It is very promising to see that this is a policy that will guide us into a pathway where we will be talking about the need to mobilise both domestic and international climate finance resources and increase financial flows towards mitigating the effects of climate change in Kenya.

When we talk about climate change, the speaker before me has stated clearly, and I could not agree more, that the adverse effects of climate change have no choice of who to hit. In fact, the saddest thing for me in this country is the fact that the matter is trivialised into a political issue every time we talk about protecting our natural resources.

Speaking from my backyard in Narok County, we have the Mau Forest. Some pictures of the forest were circulating in social media two days ago. I know this kind of policy arose from an assessment which was done through the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change. But we do not even need to do assessments to know that we are standing at a very dicey situation. As a country, as a nation and as a partner within East Africa, Africa and the world, it saddens me that when we talk about the need to protect our natural resources, these issues are trivialised.

People begin to talk about politics. When we talk about protecting the Mau Forest, people think we are hitting at one person. We have been told here and it is very clear for all of us that when the Mara River dries, the situation will be bad. I was going to talk about the picture that is circulating even today in social media. The Mara River has dried up and the impact of this is diminished food security. This will not affect one community only. It does not even just affect people who are living next to the Mara River, but affects every individual. We know the Mara River. I am just giving this as an example because we have been given examples of so many other water bodies
which are drying up. Some of them are swelling up due to siltation and rising levels of the sea.

This one is going to eat into all of us. We will have nowhere for our kids to grow in.I want to support this Policy very boldly and say that most of the resources that we are going to mobilise, both domestically and internationally or from whichever sources, should be pumped into reaching out and doing the simple things that are going to contribute towards increasing our forest cover, even before we talk about the big terminologies of carbon cover and many other things.

We need to go back to the basics of what is happening to our forests. When you fly over some of our critical water catchment areas, you will be hurt. It is very devastating.

In terms of the adverse effects that have been spoken about like droughts and floods, we do not need any assessment to know they are happening in our country.

From my village, I cannot remember the last time I saw rain yet we were able to predict when the rains would come in the past. Farmers would plough their fields in anticipation of the rains. They would very precisely know that the rains would come at a particular time. That has a ripple effect in protecting the food security of our country. We can no longer plan for that because our rains are unpredictable. Our water sources have diminished. Even the quality of our water has diminished.

It is time Kenyans woke up and smelt the coffee and knew that we have no place for our children to grow. Even as we support this kind of policy, we should really follow through its implementation.

I want to agree with what Hon. Wamalwa said to the Departmental Committee on Environment and Natural Resources and our newly appointed Cabinet Secretary.Mine is to challenge them.
This is an issue of priority if we are talking about putting our priorities clearly as a country. We need to protect our natural resources. They should wake up and address the issue of climate change as top priority.

When it comes to issues of health, there is increased cost of health because of the adverse effects of climate change. This will affect everybody. It will not matter where you come from or your political affiliation. It will affect all of us. When we talk about reduced agricultural production, this affects our livelihood. It is the mainstay of the Kenyan people. It will not choose where to hit. It will hit all of us.

When we talk about the decline in the quantity and quality of water, it will affect all of us. It is obvious that all these things have a cost implication on our Government.

As I speak, the Government has to devise means and ways to mitigate food shortages. It must address how to mitigate all these adverse effects of climate change. This is a burden which
is going to hit on the table of every Kenyan.

With those few remarks, I support this Policy and really want to see how this will be followed through in terms of implementation. Kenyans must go to the basics. One Member said
that we need to even teach our children about the small habits and practices that will promote the protection of and care of our environment. We have been told here, which is very true, that nature can be very unforgiving, but it has a way of coming back to eat into all of us....