Why big companies continue felling Mau trees

By Karanja Njoroge

The sight of a 30-tonne lorry laden with heavy logs, leaving the Mau forest, might look like a poacher being let to walk from the Masai Mara Game Reserve carrying a load of elephant tusks.

With all the local and international focus occasioned by the programme to reclaim the Mau Forest, it may be expected that all the sound of timber saws have died down and not a single log leaves what has become the most famous forest.

But the story from the ground is different. Truckloads of timber on heavy-duty trucks continue to be ferried out of the forest.

However, for those who have wondered how the logging can continue, even after Prime Minister Raila Odinga led a launch of the replanting, the on-going harvesting is legal and in accordance with international practices of forest preservation.

If the logging, done by big timber companies under an agreement with the Government, is totally banned, the conservation effort may yield minimal results.

How does it work and why should someone be allowed to cut down trees while everyone is talking re-planting?

Major timber companies, Timsales and Comply, have a running contract with the Kenya Forest Service (KFS) to cut and replenish trees in the forest.

Not indigenous

"The trees they cut, according to KFS, are not indigenous. They log mature trees which they planted earlier," says KFS Zonal Forest Manager James Gitonga.

Since the Government may not have all the capacity to sustain a running re-planting project, KFS allows the private companies to plant trees on depleted zones. The companies then harvest logs when they mature.

That way, the depleted zone keeps filling up with trees and gradually the timber merchants are relocated to another bare zone, he explained.

"Indeed, most of the reclamation has been done by the timber companies. They bring in more than they take out and the forest rows," said Gitonga.

The system was perfected in Finland in the 1960s where timber companies logged less and replanted more, making it the most forested European country with over 50 per cent tree cover.

However, lead conservationist and Nobel Peace Laureate Prof Wangari Maathai recently said, even if the effort was for the good of the first, it was bad public relations at a time when the whole country wants to see no wood coming of Mau.

Timsales Operations Manager Walter Ogada says, contrary to accusations that the companies are destroying the forest, they have been involved in re-planting depleted zones since 2001. "Our annual replanting capacity exceeds our corresponding harvest capacity." the manager said.

The move, he said, is aimed at supporting KFS to overcome the huge backlog in re-planting which had accumulated over many years due to the irrational logging allocations of yester years.

Two companies

Ogada and Comply Operations Manager Steve Kihumba say the two companies, which have established nurseries with millions of trees at Elburgon are determined to play a bigger role in restoration of the Mau.

Ogada terms it a misguided notion that they have been contributing to the destruction of the forest. According to the manager the firms have over the years invested in replenishing other forests through a sustainable management plan.

Under the contract they also take care of young plantations, including weeding, slashing, pruning until they are 10 years when they hand them over to the Government.

"We earmark those to be cut in future when they are still young so that even when we cut, we leave behind a zone still under tree cover.

Ogada says the replanting project introduced by the two companies also covers Kiptunga, Baraget, Molo, Koibatek, and Kuresoi forests.

The KFS zonal manager says a sensitisation campaign is also being held alongside the restoration programme to make local people understand the benefits of using private companies to re- plant.

On its part, KFS has started involving members of local communities in the Government re-planting project launched by the Prime Minister.

Youths from the Maasai and Ogiek communities who neighbour the forest are among those to be involved in the project under the Kazi Kwa Vijana programme, said Gitonga.

The Enapuyiapuy watershed in Kiptunga forest where the tree planting exercise was launched is at the apex of Mau.

"We are banking on the current heavy rains and also hope to take advantage of the April rains," Gitonga whose area covers Nakuru, Molo, Naivasha and Kuresoi said.

Seedlings to be planted by KFS will be bought from the tree nurseries run by local youths.

Members of the Kiptunga Community Forest Association who were instrumental in organising the successful tree-planting launch are among those playing a key role in the rehabilitation.

Tending seedlings

"We have already started protecting and tending the tree seedlings to ensure they don’t wither," said Bernard Saironji a resident of the area.

The forest destruction had wreaked havoc on the water tower to the extent that it can no longer adequately feed major rivers dependent on it.

Main conservation areas, which get their water from the Mau include Rift Valley lakes and rivers spreading out to Tanzania.