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{
    "id": 1516330,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1516330/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 229,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. (Prof.) Kamar",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 33,
        "legal_name": "Margaret Jepkoech Kamar",
        "slug": "margaret-kamar"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Madam Temporary Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to support this Bill. I congratulate Sen. Haji for coming up with a wonderful piece of legislation to take care of our forestation programmes. From the outset, I would like to mention that promotion of afforestation and reforestation in arid and semi-arid areas has been very low. This law is deliberate in bringing afforestation. I congratulate our colleague because 80 per cent of Kenya is Arid and Semi-Arid Land (ASAL). It is only 20 per cent of the country that has enough moisture to plant crops. Unfortunately, we are losing more land in Kiambu and Limuru to buildings. Therefore, we are reducing the 20 per cent and have the 80 per cent that requires a lot of attention. This Bill will do wonders once implemented. It is very important that we not only support, but also implement. We push for the implementation of this afforestation of ASALs areas of this country. Promoting the planting of trees at all public institutions is a very quick win. It is the easiest way of doing things because we have land that belongs to public institutions, including schools, and any other institutions that are completely bare. This will give us a lot of coverage. If we can aim at getting 10 to 15 per cent of each public institution to plant trees, we will move a long way. A few amendments I would like to propose to our colleague. One is in Clause 2b (e)(b) where he says that we need to establish at least one tree nursery in each county for trees suitable for the environment. I would like to suggest that we be more ambitious and not just talk of one tree nursery, but have one tree nursery per public primary or secondary school. This is very important because, in our days as young people, we used to plant trees. I visited my primary school tree. I found it was still standing huge as it is and it is ready again for harvesting if it has not been ready for a few years. So if we use the primary schools also as a unit, I want to persuade my colleague that it is we can say at least one that is run by the county government, but all our primary schools and all our secondary schools should have tree nurseries. Not only that, we need to inculcate tree planting behaviour to our children when they are very young. Somebody mentioned earlier about the Moi era. It was an environmental era because we had soil conservation days and we had tree planting days. It started from the youngest. You will find that the youngest children were planting trees. The beauty of having trees planted by students and having nurseries in schools is that we can be assured of the protection. I have also seen one of the functions that the Bill is attributing to the service is that of promoting forestry education and training. I think from out of that, we would like to see, apart from Agricultural 4K Clubs, as they used to The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Director, Hansard and AudioServices, Senate."
}