UNEP calls for more pressure over Mau

The debate over the conservation of the controversial Mau Forest Complex resurfaced on Friday with the United Nations urging the media not to tire in its efforts to push for the restoration of the resource.

UN under-secretary general Achim Steiner said Mau debate is a human rights, land tenure, governance question “and one that touches on every aspect of the health of this economy from tourism and hydropower to water and the future of agriculture.”

“It encapsulates the challenge facing a journalist- and de facto the public-trying to get to grips with the complexities and contradictions of our contemporary world,” Mr Steiner who is also UNEP’s executive director said during session on environment, media and Africa’s responsibility at Pan African Media Conference.

The conference at Kenyatta International Conference Centre was also used to mark Nation Media Group’s jubilee.

“I hope the media will not stop giving attention to Mau,” he said.

Mau is Kenya’s biggest water tower but has been threatened by encroachment of squatters and cutting down of trees.

The government is currently engaged in efforts to restore the forest but its measures have been vehemently opposed by some local leaders.

On Friday, Mr Steiner said the media needs to explain to a “businessman in the industrial area; a politician in Parliament and a man or a woman living in Nakuru or Nairobi,” that when the taps run dry it is because effects of destruction of water tower.

“That skill-that ability to be a polymath as the Greeks termed it and later a Renaissance man or woman – is one of the marks of a good environment correspondent. To be a journalist in Africa covering the environment is to be part of that future,” Mr Steiner said.

Mr Steiner said journalists should expose few vested interests that often benefit at the expense of the many, the vulnerable and the poor.

The official said the debate over Mau is about ensuring accountability, fighting impunity and illegal land allocations.

Showcasing the implications of climate change, Mr Steiner said even the Darfur conflict is partly as a result of environmental phenomena due to reduction of rainfall forcing locals to rely on shrinking resources like water and land.

Speaking ahead of World Water Day slated for Monday, Mr Steiner regretted that globally, two million tones of sewage, industrial and agricultural wastes are discharged into the waterways.

At least 1.8 million children under five years die every year from water related disease, or one after every 20 seconds.

Mr Steiner added that more than half of the world’s hospitals beds are occupied with people suffering from illnesses linked with contaminated water.

More people, he said, die as a result of polluted water than are killed by all forms of violence including wars.

“The crisis of water management and waste water can be viewed through the lens of public health. But you can equally view it through other lenses such as the fisheries lens, the agricultural lens, transport or the economic one,” Mr Steiner said.

He said discharges of wastewater, combined with run off of agricultural fertilizers and aggravated by emissions from the transport sector, is linked with the emergence of deoxygenated dead zones in the seas and oceans.

“Hundreds of these zones, now covering an area of 245,000 square kilometer, now exist threatening the health of the marine environment and its productivity,” Mr Steiner said.

He said environment is not about protecting one or other species-be it the whales, the elephant, a butterfly or a dung beetle. Nor is it about saving a much loved beauty spot, lake or woodland “but about saving ourselves.”

“The impacts humanity now is having on the planet, from degradation to pollution, is fundamental changing the planet and the rules of the game,” Mr Steiner said.

And he warned: “Climate change will be that full scale emergency, unless we act and act fast.”

He also urged governments to play a key role in creating the right kinds of conditions that will attract carbon market investors.