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{
    "id": 513298,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/513298/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 299,
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    "speaker": null,
    "content": "Therefore, I rise to support this Bill, first of all because I believe that the people who live in the area must benefit from the resources. It does not matter whether the resources should be exploited by the national or the county governments. We must ensure that the local communities benefit. There should be a law or regulations to guarantee that a certain percent of the revenue goes back to the community. However, we must ensure that the management of those resources is done correctly. The proceeds of these resources are not benefitting the people who are supposed to benefit. We must take care of the environment. Most of the resources depend on the correct environment; an environment that is taken care of. Who is best placed to take care of our natural resources if not the communities living in the specific area; be it wildlife or other resources that are mined? We now have water and oil. There are many resources including forests. The best people to take care of these resources are the local people. It is disappointing that we keep on talking about increasing forest cover so that we do not experience the kind of droughts we are experiencing due to climate change. However, if you go round the country, you will find areas that used to have forests are now clear. The trees have been cut down. I would like to suggest that as we set up regulations for local communities to share certain amounts of the resources; including those from forests, we also create programmes to replant the trees which have been cut. This is a very sad situation. We have been talking about increasing our forest cover to 20 per cent or even 10 per cent. However, for a long time, it remained at 2 per cent. I understand that it could be worse now. Soon, we will be living in a concrete jungle in this country. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, the leaders of each area have a responsibility to educate their people about the values of resources. People should not say that certain resources belong to the Government. We should say that the resources belong to us. I believe that there is room to educate our children in school so that they grow up knowing how to take care of their resources. I know that we used to have programmes where schools would have tree planting days. I am dwelling on trees because I was shocked to see some areas which used to have thick forests very bare. If you look inside, you will find that the tree cover is only found along the road. Therefore, I commend the Mover of this Bill because it is very timely. I also want to call on national and county governments to conduct civil education and teach our people the value of resources; be it wildlife or any other resource. We should not look at wildlife as the enemy that eats our crops. It is the responsibility of the county governments and even the national Government to ensure that wild animals are secured and do not ruin crops. This is what makes villages want to get rid of wildlife. They also feel that the animals are dangerous to human life and livestock. We must co-exist in a friendly atmosphere with the wildlife which brings a lot of foreign exchange through tourism. Tourism may have gone down but I believe that this is temporary. I believe that tourism will be coming up again especially when our “so called friends” remove travel advisories. I believe that Kenya is much more secure than many other countries where we do not see advisories being given. Therefore, we call upon our friends and the West to remove travel advisories against Kenya and that will bring in more resources from The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}