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{
    "id": 126574,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/126574/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 609,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
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    "speaker": null,
    "content": "The Government already has a lot of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) that it has not taken anywhere. The Government is now going to remove people with title deeds from Mau Forest, yet the same Government is not able to conserve the forest. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, “conservation” means the natural environment living in harmony with people. The Ogiek have, for generations, lived in harmony with the environment. When we talk about blanket removal, what measures are we putting in place to ensure that people who conserved the environment for generations are not lumped together with land speculators or illegal squatters, who are able to benefit from the system because they are more pro-system than the Ogiek? I wish to urge that the recommendations in this Report clearly tell us what we are going to do to the Ogiek community in the Mau Forest, who are going to suffer the consequences of the actions recommended in this Report. I had the misfortune of being in this House when the 2,500 title deeds were issued to the Ogiek as a response to an answer to a Question that was raised in this House. So, there is need for the Government to give us a specific way of dealing with the Ogiek. That is why I was saying that the people from the Ministry should be sitting on the Civil Servants’ Benches, so that they can incorporate our views in the Report for further action. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I was talking about large-scale extractors of forest resources. Lake Naivasha has receded by 100 metres, because of the extraction of water resources by flower farms. We talk about Kshs30 billion for conserving the Mau Forest. The extraction that has been allowed to go on in Naivasha by the National Environmental Management Authority (NEMA), through their environmental audits, has killed a low input fishery sector that was worth Kshs5 billion. We are concentrating on moving human beings when we have already destroyed the livelihoods of such a big population at such large scale that we do not look into. I wish to focus on the institution called “NEMA”. I am focussing on NEMA because, out of the 67 hotels in the Mara Forest, only two have sewage treatment systems, yet NEMA gives each one of those hotels an environmental audit yearly, saying that they do not do anything to harm the environment. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, the sewage and chemicals coming from the hotels and the flower farms is killing the wildlife that we are claiming we are going to protect by preserving the Mau Forest Complex. Until we solve this problem, we are not going to resolve the conservation problem that is the Mau. We should accept that the population that settled in the Mau Forest needs to be removed. The Government should show us what they have done with the laws and powers that they already have – the legislation that has been passed by this House conserves what is already gazetted. We need to onvince everybody, including the hon. Members who were calling for the amendment of this Report so that; they can see we are dealing with this matter in a transparent manner. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, the Mau Taskforce, for once, was led by somebody who is an administrator. I am not saying this because I am tribeless. A lot of the problems of conservation in this country are caused by the fact that we do not give conservation efforts a multi-sect oral approach. You either have a forester, who wishes to hug trees, leading such a campaign, or you have a water technical person, who is busy wanting the floor to be clean or have a certain bacteria content. So, having a multi-sectoral person is good. Having a multi-sectoral person is a good thing. But for how long will you always"
}