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{
    "id": 4362,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/4362/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 243,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Raila",
    "speaker_title": "The Prime Minister",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 195,
        "legal_name": "Raila Amolo Odinga",
        "slug": "raila-odinga"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, with regard to hon. Kigen’s question, we have a very ambitious afforestation programme being rolled out by the Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife, together with the Ministry of Environment and Mineral Resources. We know that to increase our forest cover, we need to plant many trees. At Independence, the forest cover in our country was 12 per cent. It has dropped from 12 per cent to now 1.7 per cent. We have a programme to increase that. It requires that we plant 7.6 billion trees in order to increase the forest cover to 10 per cent. It requires that a lot of trees are planted on an annual basis. The Ministry of Environment and Mineral Resources has worked out details of what is required to be done as this programme is being rolled out through secondary and primary schools all over the country. Tree seedlings are also being made available. So we should differentiate between tree planting and tree growing. In the past, there has been a lot of exercise of tree planting, but once planted, they were neglected and they never grew. Now we are saying that if a tree is planted, it must be nurtured until it reaches a level where it can now grow sustainably. The programme is being rolled out by the Ministry of Environment and Mineral Resources jointly with the Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife. The Member also wanted to know why we have not yet stopped charcoal burning. Charcoal burning has been stopped, but we have not yet stopped the use of charcoal and that is what is encouraging a lot of illegal use of charcoal. We are not yet in a position to completely substitute the use of charcoal generally in the country because we have not put in place the infrastructure for the alternative source of energy for use by the people, particularly in the rural areas. That is what is being planned. For example, making the liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) available to rural households at a price that is affordable and also generating bio-fuels. We need to introduce the technology of generating bio- fuels for the use of the people using things like cow dung as a source of energy. That is being advanced and encouraged by several institutions in the country. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would also like to urge the Members of this House to help the Government in fighting charcoal burning. When we were talking about the Mau here, Members were not seeing what we are seeing; that if we have people living deep in the forest, they cannot eat there unless they cook and for them to cook in the forest, they must cut down the trees. If they cut down the trees, they destroy the environment. That is why we were saying that we should get people out of the Mau because for them to continue living there, they are destroying the environment."
}