A Kenyan environment minister, Soipan Tuya, has accused people of occupying forests and breaking the law by burning charcoal ever since the ban on logging was lifted earlier this month.
Minister Tuya had remarked that the ban had only been lifted on commercial forests and those forests involved less than 8% of the tree cover in the country.
“There are Kenyans who think that the national forests are free for them to go and erect structures and engage in illegal activities as well as lease out forest land as they please.” Tuya had said.
Going by what the Kenyan president had said when the logging ban was lifted, the order had been to boost the creation of jobs and open up sectors of the economy that relied on forest products.
This decision had been made as a part of the government’s initiative to plant 15 billion trees within 10 years to boost the country’s tree cover.
