Kenya’s leading environmental defenders, the Green Belt Movement and Greenpeace Africa have condemned the government’s decision to lift the logging ban in the Mau Forest Complex, calling it a reckless move that threatens the country’s water towers, food systems, and climate resilience.
“The Mau is not just another forest. It is the heart of Kenya’s water security,” the groups said in a joint statement. “To tamper with it is to gamble with the lives of millions who depend on its rivers for water, farming, and energy.”
The Mau Forest Complex, the largest indigenous montane forest in East Africa, is one of Kenya’s five major water towers. It feeds rivers that sustain Lake Nakuru, Lake Victoria, and irrigation systems across the Rift Valley and western Kenya.
Environmentalists say reopening the forest to logging will disrupt water flows, worsen droughts and floods, and erode soil, with devastating effects on agriculture and livelihoods.
“Once you cut the Mau, you cut the lifeline of rivers. You are not just felling trees. You are uprooting livelihoods and destabilizing entire ecosystems,” the groups said in a statement.
Mounting Costs of Deforestation
According to the Forest Status Report 2024, Kenya loses 84,716 hectares of forest annually to deforestation and another 14,934 hectares to degradation. The economic cost is estimated at KES 534 billion per year through lost rainfall, poor water quality, and erosion.
These losses persist despite the government’s 15 Billion Tree Campaign, launched in 2023 to raise national tree cover to 30 percent by 2032.
“It is deeply ironic to urge citizens to plant trees while authorizing logging in the country’s main water tower,” said the groups. “This double-speak erodes public trust and makes a mockery of Kenya’s climate pledges.”
The groups accused the government of defying a 2023 Environment and Land Court ruling that required a transparent framework and public participation before logging could resume.
The ruling also directed that any harvesting, limited to 5,000 hectares of mature plantation trees, must be supervised by a Multi-Agency Oversight Team.
“There has been no public disclosure of such a framework, no evidence of compliance, and no sign that the weaknesses identified in the 2018 Forest Taskforce Report have been addressed,” the statement said.
That taskforce had exposed governance gaps within the Kenya Forest Service (KFS) and recommended reforms to increase oversight, transparency, and investment in private plantations, changes still pending years later.
A False Choice Between Jobs and Forests
Government officials have justified lifting the ban as a way to boost the local furniture and timber industries. But environmentalists say such arguments are shortsighted: “Sustainable growth depends on healthy ecosystems. Forests are not obstacles to progress. They are the foundation of water, food, and economic stability.”
The groups described the move as “economic self-sabotage,” warning that Kenya’s prosperity depends on preserving, not plundering, its natural capital.
The Green Belt Movement and Greenpeace Africa called for an immediate halt to all logging in the Mau until the government complies with court orders and restores transparent forest governance.
“The Mau is too important to be used as a political bargaining chip,” the statement concluded. “Kenya cannot plant trees with one hand and destroy forests with the other.”
