Written By Vanessa Kariuki ||
Soipan Tuya, the Cabinet Secretary for Environment, Climate Change, and Forestry, announced Kenya’s strategy for restoring its wetlands and urged local populations, particularly young people, women, and children, to take part more actively in environmental conservation efforts.
Hon. Tuya said her Ministry had adopted a catchment approach to restoring wetlands as opposed to localised interventions, which frequently fail, during a meeting of Regional and County Directors of Environment and Conservators of Forests and County Executive Committee Members (CECMs) for Environment.
“Restoration and rehabilitation of wetlands is a priority and should be done on a catchment scale or as a basin. I am happy this is the approach that the State Department for Environment and Climate Change has taken,” said CS Tuya.
She added, “Wetland restoration that is done at local scale is often negated by degradation upstream or downstream, and when it is done in this uncoordinated manner, it is shortlivedand the benefits are not fully realized.”
The Cabinet Secretary stated that increased local community involvement in environmental conservation, particularly wetlands restoration, will support the bottom-up economic strategy used by the Kenya Kwanza administration in creating jobs.
“We can be inspired by one of the most successful wetlands restorations initiatives, the Working for Wetlands in South Africa, a 20-year wetlands restoration program that resulted in the generation of 37,000 jobs mostly for youth and women. This can also be done here in Kenya,” she said.
As part of the government’s flagship effort to increase Kenya’s tree cover from its current 12.3 percent to 30 percent by the year 2032 by growing 15 billion trees over the decade, the Cabinet Secretary said her Ministry had given wetlands restoration a priority.
“So, this strategy that the State Department for Environment and Climate Change has taken, will satisfy amongst others, the dual role of meeting the 15 billion national tree growing and restoration target but also help the country in combating climate change,” said Tuya.
At the meeting convened by the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA), Hon Tuya also spoke about her Ministry’s priority areas of ecosystem restoration through the 15 billion tree-growing programmes, circular economy and climate action.
She said her Ministry was in the process of amending the Climate Change Act to “deliver a carbon markets framework that is transparent and has integrity” because of the market’s great potential to finance Kenya’s climate change mitigation and adaptation programs.
According to Hon. Tuya, her Ministry is trying to create a thriving circular economy that will turn the nearly 8 million metric tonnes of waste that Kenya produces each year into raw materials for industrial production, in accordance with last year’s Sustainable Waste Management Act.
She pushed counties to follow national government institutions and the corporate sector by adopting degraded forests and virgin acreage in their jurisdictions for reafforestation and afforestation. She asked for an all-society approach in the rollout of the 15 billion tree-growing initiative.
“As county governments, your governors at the last summit in Naivasha committed to allocating 20% of FLOCCA funds to the 15 billion national trees growing programme. As officers in charge of the sector, please use your good offices to ensure that these commitments are realised,” the CS told the CECMs.
Hon Tuya said that as Cabinet Secretary she was determined to ensure that collaboration between her Ministry and Counties in environmental conservation was strengthened, and thanked NEMA for organizing the inaugural two-day inter-governmental meeting on environmental conservation.
“As a Cabinet Secretary, I acknowledge the work that Counties do in the environment, climate change and forestry, and it is for this reason that I will seek to strengthen the partnership between the Ministry and county governments in the life of my administration. This meeting is one such, and many more will follow,” said CS Tuya.
Hon. Tuya further instructed the State Department of Environment and Climate Change to expedite the adoption of a framework for intergovernmental coordination in order to achieve proper coordination of the environmental function between the Ministry and Counties.
The Director General of NEMA, Mr. Mamo B. Mamo, and Principal Secretary for Environment and Climate Change Eng. Festus Ng’eno also spoke on the first day of the two-day meeting and discussed the strategy for restoring wetlands.
