Creating a vibrant wood industry

Kenya needs 6.4 billion trees to achieve the desired 10 per cent forest cover, but for sustainable growth, it will need to push the cover to 40 per cent.
The 10 per cent is the minimum standard forest cover worldwide per country which should be maintained at all times.

The additional 30 per cent is for commercial purpose and is meant to protect the 10 per cent from depletion.

Sweden has a 60 per cent forest cover, one of the largest in the world, and has maintained this growth for a century now. Forests are the most important natural resource in Sweden; they contribute 12 per cent of export income and employ more than 100,000 people.

Sweden

When comparing with Sweden, a forest takes 80 years to mature, while in Kenya it takes only about 10 to 15 years. Cold climatic conditions in Sweden inhibits growth of trees, while warm climatic conditions in Kenya enhance speedier growth.

Achieving a 10 per cent forest cover will mean that each Kenyan will be required to grow 13 trees per month for two years. Growing trees as opposed to planting trees — the former means tending a tree to maturity while the later in the act of the plant into the ground.

'‘Planting a tree takes about five minutes, growing a tree, however is a different matter. It takes resources, commitment and time to care for a tree to maturity and that is the method we should be adopting,” says Isaac Kalua the founder Green Africa Foundation.

The question therefore is how will Kenya grow its 6.4 billion trees?

First, it is possible to achieve the 10 cent forest cover in two years, of course with everyone’s participation. Secondly for sustainable forestry, Kenya should target an 80 per cent forest growth.

Private

This will mean private-ownership of forests; in Sweden for example 51 per cent of forests are owned by private, small-scale owners often known as ‘family forestry’ which translates to about 350,000 private owners. The private companies own 24 per cent and the state 25 per cent of the country’s forest.

In other words, Kenya needs to create a forest industry, which entails producing forests for timber, medicinal value, wood-fuel and charcoal production, for carbon sequestration, and also a large source of seedlings.

Agroforestry is an ancient agricultural farming practice in Kenya, which incorporates both food farming and tree-planting. But most farmers would rather invest in food farming or livestock because of the high economic value attached to the by-products.

Farmers therefore need to buy into the idea of tree-farming and that trees have economic value.

‘We concentrate on fruit trees and trees that produce oil. The tree-seedlings we give farmers are drought resistant, take less time to mature and produce in large quantities,” explains Kalua.

The government’s forestation policy is now encouraging agroforestry as a strategy to achieve a forest cover of 20 per cent by 2020.

There are currently 19 carbon sequestration projects in Africa, seven are based in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. In Kenya the project is at the Lake Victoria basin (Western Kenya Integrated Ecosystem Management Project).

The World Bank’s BioCarbon Fund is currently the biggest investor of carbon sequestration. International prices for carbon credits range from $3.50 per ton in America and $15.80 per ton in European markets. Africa has yet to benefit in the international carbon credit market.

Kenya’s charcoal industry is estimated to be worth Sh 30 billion, provides employment to 700,000 people and supports 200,000 dependants currently.

Unfortunately because it is unregulated business, the government losses Sh 5.1 billion in tax and is a major contributor to deforestation in Kenya.

Energy

The Ministry of Environment is currently developing strategies for sustainable production and utilization of woodfuel, promotion of efficient wood energy technologies and use of renewable energy and regulation of the production of can marketing of charcoal.

The largest quantity of charcoal comes from arid and semi-arid regions of Kenya. Eighty per cent of Kenya’s land mass is arid and semi-arid, and therefore forest production geared toward woodfuel can be created in these regions.

The planting for 6.4 billion trees and creation of a forest industry will prompt the demand of tree- seedlings. There is need of establishing commercial tree-seedlings of exotic and indigenous tree-species by private owners.

The cost of tree-seedling ranges between Sh10 to Sh 1000, indigenous trees being more expensive.

Kenya’s unemployment rate is at a staggering 40 per cent, each year 750,000 graduates are released in the job market. The forest industry and the green business can easily absorb them.

In spite of the economic opportunities available, the biggest challenge to attaining Kenya’s forest growth, is the lack of forest education coupled with a disdain attitude towards tree-planting.

'‘Tree-planting was used as a punishment in schools. The student grows to hate a tree as the tree grows; the tree becomes a constant reminder of his or her punishment. Once the student leaves school, he continues to have a negative attitude towards trees and therefore fails to understand its importance,” says Kalua.

The Foundation, he explains, has established a Green Schools project. “The idea is to plant positive environment conservation seeds in the minds of the young through educational programmes.”