Timber dealers now target indigenous trees

The rising demand for timber in Kenya’s coastal towns has driven merchants turning to mango and coconut trees.

The timber dealers have descended on indigenous trees on the Coast to fill orders for charcoal burning, carving, construction of boats and new buildings.

In the mad rush for timber, protected areas like the mangrove forests have not been spared, while charcoal burners and woodcarvers occasionally invade the Tsavo for wood.

According to Bernard Orinda, District Forest Officer at Gede, the coastal towns of Lamu and Kilifi are becoming notorious for illegal harvesting of indigenous trees, to the point of endangering the Coastal ecosystem.

“We have arrested several poachers with wood,” says Orinda. “At least four or five cases are reported every month.”

However, farmers are now trying their hand at agroforestry. Experts working with local communities are initiating tree planting projects to supplement agriculture.

Jonathan Kituku Mung’ala, a 47-year-old farmer in Kibwezi, is among the farmers engaged in agroforestry, where he is intercropping melia volkensi, a tree species locals call Mukeu, with maize, cowpeas, and soya beans.

From Mombasa’s South Coast to Malindi, pockets of tree plantations are springing up and farmers hope these will soon translate into green villages.

Eucalyptus, cypress, casuarina, Mukeu and Mvule are popular species among farmers in Coast Province. In Kwale district, Mlima, Zombo and Maleje forests are being raided for Mvule.

According to Dr Balozi Kirongo, the driving force behind this is development activities and human settlement.

“But timber harvesting is the most destructive,” says Dr Kirongo. “There are also cases of illegal harvesting of poles, firewood and medicinal plants.”

Tests on select spots along the Coast show that the greening campaign is working, but farmers fear illegal logging, charcoal burning, bush fires and carving may eat into what they believe is their future food basket.

The rampant destruction of the coast’s ecosystem is attributed by some analysts to the phenomenon of absentee landlords.

The 40-kilometre strip of land set aside by the colonial government for the Sultan of Zanzibar has remained a sore point till this day. Many Coast residents feel they were robbed of the most fertile lands in the province.

And with a Ksh600 million ($7.8 million) charcoal industry beckoning, economists say there was no way the forest cover could be left to fluorish, although salt mining, oil spillage and the introduction of other tree species have been blamed for the erosion of the ecosystem.