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"id": 206382,
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"speaker_name": "Prof. Maathai",
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"legal_name": "Wangari Muta Maathai",
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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, for giving me an opportunity to contribute to this Motion. I want to thank Prof. Ojiambo for bringing this Motion to this House. I think it is very important. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I listened very carefully to Mr. Wetangula and his argument. I think it is very important for us to do whatever it takes to exploit the ASAL regions and manage them better than they have been managed, so far. This Motion is seeking leave to guarantee that the channelling of capital to ASAL regions is possible. It is intended to guarantee that resources are channelled to these regions. We know that there have been many laws and Motions passed in this House. There also have been a lot of discussions about the ASAL regions. However, very little action follows that. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, this country is considered to be poor. However, that is merely a perception in many ways. This country is very rich as is exemplified by the fact that we have very many rich people. There are very many millionaires in this country. What we do not have is good management of our very rich resources. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, two-thirds of our country is ASAL. A majority of our people, up to 70 per cent, live in the one-third arable part of the country. That is where we put all the pressure. That is where we exploit our resources, especially in the agricultural sector. We, as a country, have set ourselves that we can only survive on agriculture, especially cash crops such as coffee and tea. With 70 per cent of our people living in the one-third arable land, we are putting a lot of pressure on that land. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, during a time like this, when it is raining, if you look at our rivers, you can clearly see that we lose tonnes and tonnes of top soil of our land. Therefore, we are constantly changing our country from the arable land to ASAL. A lot of our land is being converted into arid and semi-arid land by cutting down trees and vegetation and allowing the pressure by the people to move towards those forests and more productive areas, when we should be investing more in the ASAL regions in order to allow more people to settle in those drier areas and develop them. We really need, in this country, a strong land management policy. We have tried to introduce this even in the Constitution. I remember when we were in Bomas, I was in the committee on land and environment, and we wanted the new Constitution to address the issue of land management and policy in this country. We have completely refused to commit ourselves to August 29, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 3535 manage our land responsibly and accountably as we think of the future. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we have talked in this House about the landlessness of the millions of people in this country. We have talked about squatters, and even this morning there was a Question about people who are squatters in a forest. The only reason why people continue putting pressure on the arable land, and especially on our forests, is because we are not investing enough in the ASALs. There are very many people who live in drier areas than the ASALs that we are talking about. People like the Israelis live literally in the desert, and they have been able to convert that land into a green area. They harvest their water, recycle it, protect their soil and do everything we talk about in this country but do not do. In this country we almost think that all of us have to become farmers, and we desperately want to make everybody become a farmer. This would be wrong! What we need to do is to understand the lifestyle of the pastoralists and to support it. We need to support them, not only to continue keeping their animals but also to keep them without converting the land into a desert. So, often we have refrained from controlling the number of animals pastoralists can keep. Surely, with education, pastoralists can also appreciate the fact that we need to keep our animals without desertifying the land that we depend on. It is a fact that the so-called camel-line has been dropping in Kenya. You see more and more camels being raised as the northern part of our country becomes drier and unable to support livestock such as cows and goats. It is very important to invest in our pastoral communities, and work with them so that they can keep their lifestyle but at the same time ensure that the land does not become a desert. What I fear is that with the destruction of the one-third arable part of our country by the farming community, who are constantly cutting down vegetation - it is responsible for the destruction of our forest and gradual desertification of that arable part of our country - and the pressure being put on the ASALs by the pastoral communities, this country will soon become part of the Sahara Desert. It may not happen in our lifetime; maybe not even in the next 100 years, but I can see it happening because we have refused to wake up to the fact that we need to manage our land better."
}