Genuine Policy or Carefully Planned Bedroom Coup: Exploring the Lifting of Logging Ban in Kenya

By Prince Kurupati

This past Sunday, Kenyan President William Ruto announced the lifting of a nearly six-year ban on logging. Lifting the ban, the president said the move was not only logical but “long overdue”.

Justifying his decision to lift the logging ban, President Ruto said that logging possesses the power to transform the country’s economy as it’s a great revenue-generating alternative. He went on to state that the industry can also employ a huge chunk of the Kenyan workforce both directly in the forest and indirectly via the forest products manufacturing process.

The President announced the news at a church service in Molo, a town which is about 200 kilometres northwest of the capital Nairobi. Addressing the congregation, President Ruto said, “We can’t have mature trees rotting in forests while locals suffer due to lack of timber. That’s foolishness… this is why we have decided to open up the forest and harvest timber so that we can create jobs for our youth and open up business”.

Allaying fears of a possible reversal of his strong stance to combat climate change, President Ruto said that his government would continue with its plans to plant 15 billion trees over ten years.

Ecstatic with the news that the logging ban has been lifted are timber merchants and millers who for long lobbied the responsible authorities to liberalise the industry, arguing that it’s a major contributor to the government fiscus as well as a huge employment creator.

In the immediate aftermath of the news that the logging ban has been lifted, several debates have arisen on various social media platforms. Chief among them is the question of whether the lifting of the logging ban comes from a genuine desire to diversify the Kenyan economy or its more of a bedroom coup. Earlier this year – March, to be specific – First Lady Rachel Ruto “adopted” 200 hectares in the Kakamega forest for “re-afforestation”. In justifying this, the First Lady said that by adopting the forest, she could achieve her goal of growing 500 million trees in the next ten years as a long-term solution to combat climate change.

Rumblings have emerged on social media platforms questioning if the Rutos have played a long game by first ‘adopting’ large hectares of forest and then later lifting the logging ban. With the lifting of the ban, the First Lady can now freely fell trees for her own benefit.

Away from the social media rumblings as to the real reason behind the lifting of the logging ban, an environmental group Greenpeace Africa has criticised President Ruto’s decision, saying, “In Kenya, forests are home to rare and endangered species, and millions of local people depend on these forests for their livelihoods, relying on them for food and medicine… Since the Kenyan government imposed the ban on logging six years ago, significant progress has been made in forest protection and in combatting the climate crisis… Lifting the ban will undo all our hard work, as it will open the floodgates to commercial and illegal logging solely driven by profit. Our forests will be at the mercy of saw millers who have no regard for the consequences”.