Nema sounds alarm on Mau destruction

The national environment authority on Wednesday called for intervention to save the Mau forest from further degradation.

There is a need to formulate an inter-sectoral strategic management plan to save the forest as it is an important catchment area for Mara-Serengeti ecosystem, according to National Environment Management Authority (Nema) director-general Godfrey Wahungu.

Government officials say that new settlers are trickling into the Maasai Mau forest and felling indigenous trees for timber and charcoal.

Another group of squatters is yet to be evicted from the same forest as had been planned in the programme to restore the Mau Forest Complex six years ago.

The illegal settlers are accused of cultivating the forest land, and aiding the felling of trees for charcoal.

Kenya Forest Service (KFS) has seized more than 3,000 cedar posts in the last four months.

Last year, KFS arrested 60 illegal loggers.

Environmentalists say these activities threaten the survival of wildlife and people who depend on the Mara river and Lake Victoria.

Mr Wahungu said Nema in conjunction with Kajiado County and Kenya Wildlife Service had developed and gazetted the management plan for Amboseli National Park.

“Mau Forest is an important asset which should not be interfered with. Politics of the day and vested interests should be divorced from conservation efforts for the sake of posterity,” he said during the launch of a 10-year strategic management and development plan for the Mau Complex Water Tower at a Narok hotel on Wednesday.

SAVE THE WATER TOWER

He asked the national government and Narok County to take urgent measures to save the water tower.

Kenya Water Towers Agency CEO Francis Nkako said three sectors of the economy — tourism, energy and agriculture — were losing about Sh30 billion annually to illegal loggers in Mau forest.