On Sunday, The Head Of state announced the lifting of a near six-year ban on logging.

The President said the move was “long overdue” and was aimed at creating jobs and opening up sectors of the economy that rely on forest products.

“We can’t have mature trees rotting in forests while locals suffer due to lack of timber. That’s foolishness,” he said at a church service.

“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,”

He said the government would push ahead with plans to plant 15 billion trees over 10 years.

The lift of the ban is likely to benefit saw millers and timber merchants who protested that the ban had caused major job losses.

The ban was previously enforced by the previous government in February 2018 in public and community forests with the aim of stopping illegal logging and increasing the nation’s forest cover to 10%.

However, Greenpeace Africa has warned that the decision would have,” catastrophic environmental consequences.”

‘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,” it said last month in a petition against the move.

“Since the Kenyan government imposed the ban on logging six years ago, significant progress has been made in the forest protection and with combatting the climate crisis,” it said.

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