This news item was first published in the Nairobi Star and comes to us via AllAfrica news service.
Kenya: Mombasa Salt Firms Accused of Logging
By Kibiwott Koross, 14 March 2012
Environmentalists have raised the alarm over massive logging of indigenous trees by salt manufacturers at the Coast.
Nature Kenya yesterday said in a press release that forests are rapidly disappearing as a result of charcoal and firewood for salt manufacturing factories at the Coast despite a ban on firewood collection by the National Environment Management Authority and Kenya Forest Service in January.
“There are reports that firewood continues to be transported despite the ban,” said Nature Kenya CEO Paul Matiku in the statement. “This has largely been attributed to certain salt manufacturers who have allegedly stockpiled large amounts of firewood to ride out the ban.”
Matiku fears that once the stockpile of firewood currently held by salt manufacturers has been exhausted, the illegal trade in firewood would resume. “Industries may have believed that they were mitigating climate change by burning ‘biomass'”, said Matiku, “while in reality, they are doing the opposite.
By burning wood, the manufacturers are actually aiding and abetting the clearing of indigenous forests and the loss of valuable fruit trees on farms, which only leads to an increase in global warming, water shortages, soil erosion and food insecurity”. Coastal forests are rich in biodiversity, sheltering half of the nation’s tree species, and many globally endangered animals and plants. “Losing these species would reduce human ability to cope with environmental stresses in future,” he said.
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