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{
    "id": 503406,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/503406/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 179,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. (Ms.) Ng’etich",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 511,
        "legal_name": "Cecilia Chelangat Ngetich",
        "slug": "cecilia-chelangat-ngetich"
    },
    "content": "parents would plant a tree. He also initiated planting of trees along the highways, which is now being adopted by many counties, which is really good. In the cities, air is polluted through carbon dioxide that is emitted by various vehicles and high population of industries in cities. The tree planting programme advised that to curb pollution, it is good to make cities green by planting trees in every available space. It is good to plant trees so that they may absorb harmful gases. When we talk of the environment, all of us know that the late Prof. Wangari Maathai was the guru of the environment. She fought to preserve environment through the Green Belt Movement, which later earned her the Nobel Prize. She also introduced the Shamba System, under which the public would be encouraged to plant trees. Before the trees matured, they would plant crops in between. This way, the trees would be preserved and the public would harvest food from the same parcels of land. This would ensure that the trees survived and grew to maturity; the public would then be shifted to other places. This would have been a very good way of ensuring that our forest cover meets the international standard; right now we are just at 7 per cent against the world standard of about 12 per cent forest cover. One time, there was a policy that when you cut down one tree you needed to plant two. It is sad to say that we have seen illegal logging and burning of charcoal without any replacement of trees. For a long time, no one will realize this. However, the effect is already being manifested in form of drying up of many rivers. Recently, I remember reading an article about the risk of Mara River drying up. This would lead to slow economic growth, in the sense that wildebeests, which is the Eighth Wonder of the World that often attracts tourists to view them as they cross Mara River, may not be there anymore; they will just walk over to another place. They will not be swimming across because of the drying up of the Mara River due to the degradation of the environment, or the deforestation, that is happening now. One Member has already mentioned it, and I want to support the fact that in the Bill there is a proposal that indicates that the Authority that will be formed will also provide for any interests in and over land. Giving two authorities power to deal with land is wrong, because there is another legislation that deals with use of land, and we know very well that land is an emotive issue. It is in public domain that the conflicts that we see in the northen part of Turkana are because of land. Today, I listened to proceedings of the Senate, and there was a petition about Nyandarua and Laikipia border. There is also conflict about water resources like the ones in Naivasha, where certain communities want water for their animals while others want it for human use. We need to comb through these proposed amendments to ensure that they do not create more problems as we try to solve the existing ones. Otherwise, the Bill is good in the sense that it will bring efficiency when the environmental management is under one coordination body, which will also be able to take stock of natural resources."
}