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{
    "id": 1186486,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1186486/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 292,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Ganze, PAA",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Kenneth Tungule",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Speaker, for giving me this opportunity. I want to congratulate Hon. KJ for bringing this Motion to Parliament. It is a timely one since Kenya at the moment is suffering from the vagaries of climate change. One way to mitigate climate change is to make sure that we have enough forest cover in the country. We need to increase the forest cover so as to attract more rainfall to reduce the effects of the current drought. This is a timely Motion. I support the fact that we should embark on a drive to make sure that we plant trees on all road reserves that we have in the country. I want to commend the President for coming up with a plan of planting five billion trees in the next five years. I think it is a good way to start with the available road reserves but, we should not stop there. This exercise should cover all public places that we have available including public land, and all primary and secondary schools. I would also want to note that we have had road contractors who have cut down trees but have not replanted them. All contractors are supposed to do an environmental impact assessment but most of them do these reports as a formality but do not go ahead to mitigate the effects of cutting down trees to implement the project. More needs to be done to compel contractors to make sure that if they cut trees for them to construct roads, they then have to make sure that they are replanted so that we can maintain the forest cover that we have. I want to bring an issue that is currently happening in my constituency, Ganze and Kilifi at large. Of late, we have seen Chinese contractors translocating baobab trees. They uproot and export the baobab trees to their countries. Baobab trees are very valuable to us. They have a lot of emotional attachment especially to my tribe. Whatever is happening in Kilifi right now is wrong. I urge the concerned Government department to stop the exercise with immediate effect because if it is not stopped, then in the near future, all the baobab trees in Kilifi will be taken to China. As leaders, we want to make sure that we increase the forest cover. It is a pity to see that trees are now being translocated to foreign countries."
}