Stay away from forests, Duale warns land grabbers

Environment Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale when he took over the docket from Defence CS Soipan Tuya at NHIF Building in Nairobi on August 12, 2024. [Boniface Okendo, Standard]

The Environment, Climate Change and Forestry Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale has put on notice grabbers of forest land saying that it will not happen under his watch.

Duale, who was speaking during tree planting to celebrate the 78th independence day of India, at City Park in Nairobi, said that the government will work with other stakeholders to secure the facility.

"This facility belongs to Kenya Forest Service. And if there are people who have titles or who have some ownership, let me tell them, not under my watch as a minister," he said.

The CS said that the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) is headquartered in Nairobi, making it the world's environmental city thus the need for its preservation.

"For it to be called the environmental city of the world, then before we go out of Nairobi, we must preserve all the green spaces and forests, including Karura, City Park, and all the others," he said.

The initiative organised by the High Commission of India Nairobi, Earth Keepers Foundation among other partners led to the planting of 3,000 bamboo trees.

The High Commissioner of India to Kenya Namgya Khampa, said that the two countries have a shared priority and convergent perspective on the environmental agenda and the challenges stemming from climate change.

"Fragile ecology carries serious implications for our ability to realise the Sustainable Development Goals and it poses a disproportionate risk to those who are most vulnerable in our societies," the envoy said.

"I think we have, ourselves as countries, seen the dangers from a fragile ecology and from the kind of changes that climate-induced disasters are bringing into our societies and communities and whether one talks about the floods that ravaged Kenya earlier this year or the landslides that we had back home in Wayanad in Kerala more recently," said Khampa.