{"id":49102,"date":"2023-08-29T14:55:39","date_gmt":"2023-08-29T13:55:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/?p=49102"},"modified":"2023-08-29T14:55:39","modified_gmt":"2023-08-29T13:55:39","slug":"kenya-ruto-logging-ban-africa-climate-summit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/2023\/08\/29\/kenya-ruto-logging-ban-africa-climate-summit\/","title":{"rendered":"Kenyan president William Ruto courts logging controversy"},"content":{"rendered":"

While he prepares to host dozens of world leaders at next week\u2019s Africa Climate Summit, Kenya\u2019s president William Ruto is facing criticism from some environmentalists at home.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ruto has been hailed abroad as one of Africa\u2019s green champions. In Kenya, his plans to lift a ban on logging are causing controversy.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ruto\u2019s government argues that lifting the ban will boost the economy while only affecting a small minority of the East African nation\u2019s forests.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some environmentalists support him, saying that lifting the ban on chopping down commercial forests will help protect more natural indigenous forests, which suck in more carbon and shelter more wildlife.<\/span><\/p>\n

Others say lifting the ban contradicts Ruto\u2019s tree-planting campaign and will make a devastating drought even worse.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Kenyan

A mature exotic tree plantation at Eastern Mau Forest in Nakuru County. (Photo: James Wakibia\/SOPA Images\/Sipa USA)<\/p><\/div>\n

Ruto’s reassessment<\/h3>\n

Kenya has over <\/span>two million hectares<\/span><\/a> of forests, covering an area bigger than Israel. Of this, about a twentieth is commercial forest, where companies plant and cut down trees for timber.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2018, as deforestation reduced river water levels and threatened the supply of drinking water and hydro powered electricity, then-deputy president <\/span>Ruto imposed<\/span><\/a> a 90-day ban on logging \u201cto allow reassessment and rationalisation of the entire forest sector\u201d.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This ban kept being extended until July this year when Ruto, now president, lifted it. He<\/span> told reporters<\/span><\/a> in the timber town of Nakuru that it was \u201cfoolish\u201d to have mature trees rotting in forests while locals suffer due to lack of income from timber. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is why we have decided to open up the forest and harvest timber so that we can create jobs for our youth,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Job creator<\/h3>\n

Defending the ban at a press conference in Nairobi, Ruto\u2019s environment minister Soipan Tuya told Climate Home that deforestation in many parts of the country has nothing to do with legal logging.<\/span><\/p>\n

Data from Global Forest Watch suggests that forestry is a minor cause of deforestation, compared to the much larger role played by shifting agriculture.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Nevertheless, their analysis suggests that forestry has caused the loss of trees in hundreds of hectares a year over the last decade.<\/span><\/p>\n