Narok County Ecosystem Conservator James Mburu (left) looks on as bags of charcoal are destroyed in Nyakweri forest on March 1, 2018. The regional government banned charcoal trade. PHOTO | GEORGE SAYAGIE | NATION MEDIA GROUP
Like most people of a certain age, I look at the past with a yearning bordering nostalgia.
As a young boy, my friends and I would be chased away by the older boys whenever they felt like taking a dip in the nearby river, which had clear bluish water that flowed smoothly, and from which they often caught medium-size fish.
Today, River Theta in Gatundu is a sickly, sluggish, brown ribbon which only bursts into life during rainy seasons, flooding the whole valley with silt and pollutants.
Certainly, nobody swims in it anymore — even tadpoles are afraid of lingering there.
DRINKING WATER
During those days, people did not drink from rivers because there were numerous streams and creeks full of cold relatively pure water.
During those days, people did not drink from rivers because there were numerous streams and creeks full of cold relatively pure water.
Today, you would have to go far and wide to find such a body of water with which to quench your thirst.
At the same time, even getting close to the river was an arduous task due to the profuse undergrowth and trees on its banks.
Today, you find all manner of tubers and vegetables growing just a few metres from the river itself, and nobody seems to care.
RAINFALL
Going down memory lane as an illustration of how we have conspired to destroy our environment is pleasant but ultimately futile.
Going down memory lane as an illustration of how we have conspired to destroy our environment is pleasant but ultimately futile.
Right now, we are being blessed with robust rainfall but most of the water is rushing downhill to swell the rivers and make our situation even more miserable because the relatively fertile top soils are going down with it.
That is why we keep lamenting that we can no longer grow enough food, oblivious of the fact that we have progressively mistreated nature and it is fighting back.
Earlier this week, I was piqued by the views of an expert in forestry who tried to demonstrate that slapping a ban on logging was not only illogical but somehow defeatist.
LOGGING
I confess I did not understand his argument because all my life, I’ve been made to believe that forests in their pristine condition had positive effects on the amount of rainfall we should expect.
We have, in the past, been told prolonged droughts and gradual desertification, flooding and climate change had something to do with the way we interfere with the ecosystem.
But when the expert tells me that “trees do not cause, form or even attract rain” but instead “trap the rain and percolate it to the soil and aquifers and blanket the water from evaporation”, it upends all that I thought I knew about the relationship between trees and rain.
It also makes one wonder what the hullabaloo is all about when we talk of conserving the Mau, Mt Kenya forest and the Aberdares.
TREE COVER
Could it be that conservationists are wrong to link an abundance of rain with a super abundance of indigenous trees in the Congo Basin, the Amazon, and the Taiga forest systems?
Could it be that conservationists are wrong to link an abundance of rain with a super abundance of indigenous trees in the Congo Basin, the Amazon, and the Taiga forest systems?
On the other hand, the number of trees you can count in the Sahara, Kalahari, Gobi and Arabia deserts is negligible.
Do these vast tracts of land lack vegetation because rain does not fall or is it because there is no vegetation that rain does not fall?
We have no choice but to admit that desertification due to wanton destruction of trees and other flora is real and we in Kenya are fast turning our country into a wasteland unless we apply a brake to the mindless commercialisation of our natural heritage.
DESERTIFICATION
It is a fact many people depend on charcoal for domestic use while thousands of others depend on the timber industry for a living.
It is a fact many people depend on charcoal for domestic use while thousands of others depend on the timber industry for a living.
But these are not reasons enough to oppose any limitation on the exploitation of natural resources even when we are aware future generations are in great danger of inheriting an earth that has no water, no vegetation, and no wild animals — nothing except a vast concrete jungle.
Let us fell trees for building timber and other forest products all right, but we must do so with the full knowledge that if we don’t take urgent measures to replenish whatever we exploit, we shall soon run out of options.
We really cannot afford to turn over this country to loggers and charcoal merchants with a carte blanche to fell as many trees as possible before our forests run out.
We should also shun those experts adept at explaining away our idiocy with self-serving sophistry and circular arguments.
Ngwiri is a consultant editor. andrewngwiri@gmail.com
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