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The Land Question: Reprieve for Squatters as Forest Ban Lifted

The East African Standard (Nairobi)
NEWS
September 12, 2004
Posted to the web September 13, 2004

By Samuel Mburu
Nairobi
Last week, thousands of peasants cut off from their livelihood by the ban on
non-resident cultivation in government forests had cause for celebration when
the ban was lifted.
Environment Minister Kalonzo Musyoka's order, reversing an earlier one by his
predecessor, Dr Newton Kulundu, in March, this year, will benefit the peasants
and the forestry department in equal measure.
It will also solve a nagging land problem brought to the open by the
displacement of thousands of people in the wave of ethnic clashes that rocked
the country between 1991 and 1993, and again in 1997-1998.
Kulundu's ban on forest farming, commonly known as the shamba system, rendered
many cultivators destitute. Some moved to trading centres on the edges of the
forests to eke out a living hawking items and illegally felling trees for sale.
They left behind schools and churches, the only permanent structures that were
allowed in the forest.
The peasants, who cultivated crops in the forests, had been unsuccessfully
ordered out of the forests in 1988, but in March this year Kulundu's decree was
enforced.
Kulundu had initially ordered a December 29, 2003, deadline before extending it
to March 31, this year, to allow farmers to harvest their crops.
He blamed the shamba system for the destruction of forests in the country whose
current cover is 1.7 per cent against the internationally accepted 10 per cent.
The minister blamed the farmers for destroying 70 per cent of the forest cover
in the country.
The country's forests have been maintained by the cultivators, who plant crops
together with trees, without making permanent settlements, because they have to
move when the trees mature. The ban on forest cultivation affected the supply
of food to urban areas, especially Irish potatoes, peas, carrots, beans and
other cereals.
The restoration of the shamba system this week came after forestry officials
accompanied Kalonzo on a tour of Ndundori Forest in Nakuru, where the pilot
project of the system will run, gave interesting statistics on the state of
forests.
The Chief Conservator of Forests, Mr Patrick Mbugua, said that it costs only
Sh3,000 to plant one hectare of trees (or 1,700 seedling) to maturity under the
system. However, if the department were to undertake the duty alone, said the
officer, it would cost the taxpayer Sh27,000.
After the first year, the forest department plants tree seedlings in the plots
as the farmers continue tending to their crops. The advantage is that the trees
also benefit from the fertilisers applied to the crops, while the weeding by
farmers keeps away rodents, parasites and weeds.
The areas covered include most of the highland districts of Rift Valley,
Central, Western and Eastern provinces, where the commercial/industrial
plantations are located. Trees found in these forests are the various species
of pine, cypress and eucalyptus, which provide raw materials for timber millers
and pulp.
The decree on the shamba system came on the back of an earlier ban on logging
ban, which had pushed an estimated 30,000 people out of employment. Briefcase
saw millers, who were mostly powerful people in the Kanu regime, were granted
licences and plantations but instead leased them to people who would hire
machinery to cut entire plantations without following the laid down procedures.
Experts in the visiting team said as a result of the ban on cultivation in
forests, the country has a backlog of over 30,000 hectares for re-
afforestration. In Rift Valley alone, they said, the backlog is 15,447
hectares, and the ministry has only planted 4,602 hectares this year, making
the target of a million trees a year unachievable.

   

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