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{
"id": 1516274,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1516274/?format=api",
"text_counter": 173,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Wambua",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": {
"id": 13199,
"legal_name": "Enoch Kiio Wambua",
"slug": "enoch-kiio-wambua"
},
"content": "will happen on the ground - real trees being grown by real people and those trees being nurtured to maturity. The next step would be for us as leaders and as senators. Each Senator in this Senate is a former student in a primary school somewhere in this country. What about each one of us retreating to our respective primary schools? It will mean that there will be, at the very least, 67 primary schools in the Republic where we establish forests, sponsored and spearheaded by Senators. If that is achieved, we can then begin to talk to the public about environmental conservation. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, even as I support this Bill, I am reminded about those of us who went to primary school when President Moi was in office. He had a serious clarion call on environmental conservation. It used to be called at that time dealing with soil erosion. In Swahili, they called it mmomonyoko wa udongo . I remember the former President went around the country, literally building gabions and stopping soil erosion. I remember fondly when he visited Kitui. At that time, I was a very small boy and he went to a place called Kyaani. It is in the Matinyani ward of Kitui West constituency. He helped build gabions just to stop soil erosion. This exercise of conserving our environment, increasing forest cover and making sure that we have a country that attains a better percentage of forest cover is an exercise that must now, better than ever before, move from boardrooms, the Floor of the House to where that need needs to be addressed. I say this fully cognizant of the fact that the Senate Majority Leader has said, there has been a ban on logging but that ban was lifted. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, on Monday this week and I sadly remember this, as I was driving at night from Laikipia where I had attended the burial of the father of our friend and colleague, Sen. Kinyua, I saw many, many trucks leaving forests, I believe it is the Aberdares, carrying huge, huge logs. I remember telling my driver that this one tree here must have been in existence for more than 50 or 60 years and in just one night, somebody wakes up, cuts these trees as they pursue a profit motive. I urge this administration that even as we continue to deal with this issue of climate change and even as we support local businesses - the timber industry, we should strike a healthy balance between allowing logging and ensuring that we achieve the target of 15 billion trees by 2030. If there is one area where I will support the initiative of the national executive, it is in the area of climate change because, if we do not fix our environment and forests now, then the future generations will judge us very harshly. This is because the rate at which we are destroying our environment, felling trees and doing logging is dangerous to the future sustainability of our forests in this country. Lastly, this Bill, though it speaks to environmental conservation, forest cover, legislations that need to be put in place and the change that we need to put, to ensure that this happens, this work needs to be done is on our land and it is work that each one of us and every leader in this country must take a lead role to ensure that we do our part in conserving our own environment. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, with those remarks, I support."
}