Elgeyo Marakwet County Assembly petitions Senate to ensure revenue generated from forests benefit host counties

Elgeyo-Marakwet County Assembly has petitioned the Senate to amend the Forest Act for it to merge the Mining Act of 2016 to ensure that a fixed percentage of revenue generated by Kenya Forest Service (KFS) be allocated to county governments hosting forests.

Kapchemutwa ward Member of the County Assembly (MCA) Stephen Cheruiyot who moved the Motion at the County Assembly, said 37 percent of the total area of Elgeyo Marakwet County is covered by forests, making it among the most forested counties in the country and should at least benefit from 20 percent of the total revenue collected from activities in the county.

“The funds allocated to counties shall be earmarked specifically for forest conservation, environmental management, promotion of community forest initiatives and sustainable forest-based livelihoods,” said Mr Cheruiyot, who is also the Leader of Majority.

He said the counties hosting those resources suffer a lot of damage during harvesting of mature trees, with their road network being damaged by heavy machinery ferrying the forest products, but lack the mechanism to ensure that the damaged roads are repaired.

“This Motion is timely. Even if you look at the close of June 2024, KFS had generated Sh9.7 billion from sale of trees and out of that revenue none of this went to the hosting communities. That’s why we are asking the Senate to support this petition and follow it to the latter so as to ensure that counties hosting forests get to benefit,” said he said.

“We also appreciate the fact that the government is planning to roll out fencing of forests. But other than the 17 user rights, the community should also benefit from anything that is monetary from permits, cess, levies they charge and even eco-tourism activities happening inside the forest, that 30 percent should go to the hosting county for the local community to benefit,” added the ward rep.

Emsoo ward MCA Christopher Cheboiboch, who supported the Motion, said communities hosting forests have for many years conserved forests and should benefit from the revenue generated.

“When there are fire outbreaks, these are the first people to respond and should be supported through improvement of road network and refurbishment of local amenities like hospitals and schools,” said Mr Cheboiboch.

Assembly Water, Environment and Climate Change Committee chairperson Joshua Kipruto on his part expressed optimism that the Senate will consider the petition in a bid to ensure that the people benefit from natural resources they have in their region.

“We have the largest forest cover but our people are yet to fully reap its benefits. As much as the community helps in conserving the forests, we have not seen any impact on the community. Our people should also benefit from carbon credit generated from areas hosting forests. The National Forest Act should be amended to mirror the Mining Act 2016,” said Mr Kipruto, who is the Kapsowar ward MCA.

The MCAs said they support President William Ruto’s directive towards the conservation of the environment, but added the government should ensure that counties hosting forests should benefit from carbon credit.

“The Senate and the National Assembly should come up with a mechanism on how such resources are going to be shared so that counties bearing the biggest responsibility are properly compensated,” said Mr Cheruiyot.