Restore riparian land but factor in human rights

An excavator demolishes structures erected on riparian land at Kiamaiko in Nairobi.  [Collins Oduor, Standard]

As World Environment Day was celebrated globally this week, images of the demolition of houses and business premises in Nairobi flooded the mainstream and other media, with wails and tears as affected citizens claimed inadequate notice.

World Environment Day is marked every June 5 to promote action against air pollution, climate change, plastic pollution, and food security among others. This year’s theme focused on land restoration, desertification, and climate resilience, clearly aligning with the Nairobi demolitions. However, rights issues abound.

Efforts to reclaim and restore lands are crucial for Nairobi’s environmental sustainability and urban resilience. Nairobi has suffered rapid sprawling and encroachments on green spaces, worsening environmental degradation that has increased flood risks and messed up air quality. The Nairobi River is one of the city’s heavily polluted and encroached natural resources despite several efforts by regimes to clean it. Whether the victims’ claims of little to no warning are true or not, leaving them homeless and without sources of income is a denial of basic rights, including that to live with dignity, as rights defenders such as Amnesty International have stated.

Kenya ratified numerous international human rights treaties, including the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, which calls for the protection of the right to adequate housing. In addition, the Constitution allows the right to dignity, as well as adequate housing.

Even before the demolitions, debate on affordable housing had visited, the contention being on who needs the houses and if everyone must be taxed. And now the well-intended but poorly executed demolitions. The government’s approach to land restoration should align with ratified legal frameworks concerning demolitions, and eventually show respect for human rights while providing adequate compensation and resettlement plans.

Nationally, even as the May 2020 heavy rains caused heavy flooding in Nairobi, displaced thousands, and significantly damaged infrastructure, a report by the Kenya Red Cross later highlighted over 300,000 people affected by floods in urban areas that year. The culprits include poor drainage systems, deforestation, and unplanned urban development. Land restoration is key to building climate-resilient communities.

Informing and engaging stakeholders from informal settlements, environmental groups, and urban planners in the demolition plans can ensure everyone has a say in the implementation process, for more humane solutions.

When, for instance, the government sought to implement the Kibera Slum Upgrading Project, aimed at improving living conditions in the city’s largest informal settlement through the construction of new houses and infrastructure, residents were involved in the planning process, and those affected by relocations were provided with alternative housing. Strengthening legal frameworks to protect the rights of residents in informal settlements and ensuring demolitions are carried out lawfully and ethically can also work, in addition to preventing the problem by sticking to the city plans and ending corruption among government officers that look the other way as encroachment happens.

Truth be told, the environmental degradation in Nairobi is palpable and the city requires immediate and sustained action to forestall the recurrence of flooding, displacement, deaths, and destruction of property such as experienced in the April and May 2024 rains.

However, the restoration must not snatch any human rights. The government must employ a balanced approach that respects the dignity and rights of all. The true measure of success will not only be in the green spaces restored but also in the lives uplifted and the communities strengthened.

- The writer advocates for climate justice. [email protected]