By JUMA KWAYERA
KENYA: Foreign Secretary nominee Amina Mohammed has received backing from wildlife conservationists, who say she is best placed to anchor environmental issues in the country’s foreign policy.
Kenya Wildlife Service Director William Kiprono said Mohammed will put environment top on the foreign diplomacy agenda at a time poaching and bio-piracy are threatening to erode Kenya’s natural resources.
“We are happy we will have somebody at the helm who understands environmental issues from legal and diplomatic perspectives. We now expect the Government to actively and aggressively protect our resources against exploitation. Conservation is key to tourism, which is a sector of our economy. However, the sector has not been given adequate attention in our foreign policy,” Kiprono told The Standard on Saturday.
Until her nomination to the Cabinet last week, Mohammed was serving as Kenya ambassador to United Nations Environmental Programme, where she distinguished herself as a strong advocate of the country’s position on Multilateral Environmental Agreements, especially the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (Cites).
She was among the first four Cabinet secretary nominees to be named when President Uhuru Kenyatta began unveiling the Jubilee government Cabinet.
As an envoy with a legal background, conservationists say Mohammed took time to understand the complex texts of the Cites convention, which enabled her to participate deliberations on retention of Kenya’s elephant stock in Cites Appendix I during the meetings and supported Nairobi’s push for international ban on trade in sandalwood tree species in Hong Kong in February.
Appendix I is the category of plants and wildlife in which international trade is banned. Kiprono said the conservation fraternity is confident Mohammed will be instrumental in articulating Kenya’s conservation ethic to the international community.
