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{
    "id": 126569,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/126569/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 604,
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    "content": "debate that is more of preservation than conservation. Preservation is for antiques, where you preserve an antique so that it is able to increase in its value. That is why you do not look at other issues pertaining to that item. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, we have over-focussed this debate on the removal of the settlers in the Mau Forest. In the process, we have neglected other issues that have caused the degradation of that forest. The problem in the Mau Forest Complex is wider than the settlers therein. The problem in the Mau Forest Complex is an issue of institutional failure. I am afraid that the Report on the Conservation of the Mau Forest Complex has not done justice to that component. The degradation in the Mau Forest, as in any other water catchment, is a factor of three issues: Catchment degradation that can be caused by settlement such as the illegal or legal settlements in the Mau, and extraction of the resources in that area, such as the water that is being removed to the flower farms and the rest. In my view, the destruction of the Mau Forest is more of an issue of institutional failure, because the people who undertake logging do not do so in the farms where people have already settled. They undertake logging inside gazetted forests. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, what has the change in the name of the Forestry Department to Forest Service achieved in terms of reducing logging activities in the Mau Forest? Yesterday, officials from the Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife, and the Ministry of Environment and Mineral Resources were at the UNEP, showing the donor community a video showing logging. I wish to tell the Minister for Forestry and Wildlife, who is here, and who should have had his technical people seated on the Civil Servants’ Benches, that he should not show the international community logging activities on video when it is a reflection of his weakness and his institutions, as he is not an ordinary mwananchi. The Ministry should have shown the international community what it has done, as an institution, to conserve the part of the Mau Forest that is not yet de-gazetted, so that it can move to the other areas that it wants to re-capture by removing the illegal or legal settlers from the forest. I support the removal of the people who have illegally settled in the forest, particularly those who do not have title deeds. I support the criminalisation and whatever measures can be taken against loggers and land speculators. The problem of the Mau Forest is not lack of legislation. It is the weakness of the existing institutions in not enforcing the laws that we already have. We are now providing an opportunity for a political fight amongst communities, because leaders in this country are used to sitting on the fence, and do not want to make bold decisions."
}