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{
    "id": 530658,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/530658/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 98,
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    "speaker": null,
    "content": "many scattered laws touching on environment. Right now we are debating the Environmental Management and Co-ordination (Amendment) Bill (National Assembly Bill No. 31 of 2014). We have the National Drought Management Bill (National Assembly Bill No.42 of 2014); the Mining Bill (National Assembly Bill No.8 of 2014) and the Natural Resources (Benefit Sharing) Bill (Senate Bill No.34 of 2014) which also touches on environment. There is need to consolidate the gains we have made and have a comprehensive kind of approach in terms of dealing with the environment. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, just recently, there was a study done in Nairobi, where it interviewed 8,000 people and had tests of Tuberculosis (TB) prevalence in the city. More than half of the samples tested positive. That shows that even in the city when we talk about environment, it is a living hazard because this is a very communicable disease. It is prevalent in the city because of how we have treated our environment. It is not an option for us to conserve the environment; it should be the moral thing to do. This law has some progressive amendments that will make our conservation better. Hopefully, we will implement them the way they are. Apart from dealing with the former districts, provinces, systems and aligning to the devolution system, we have had problems especially dealing with the appeals from counties since early last year. One function that they felt as county governments and most of us agreed with them that they needed a role, was the management of the resources in the counties. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, my home is near, River Nderit, my local river that never dried in the 1980s and 1990s but today, it is a road and right now people are harvesting sand in it. We are feeling the impact of the destruction of the Mau Complex 10 or 20 years down the line. I am looking forward to 20 years when our children and grandchildren would be living, it will be worse because if we do nothing about it, the destruction that is going on will only continue. If you stand outside my house in the evening, the fires that are raging now are crazy and that has been said by other Senators. We are losing many hectares of land and forest in the Mau and other areas to fires. I read in the media and see Kenya Forest Reservists saying and begging the counties to have a role and the counties say that “no that is not our area; it is the role of the national Government”. These are the areas that we need to streamline, at the end of it, it should not be a tussle. Everyone should have an interest, a chance and a stake to protect the environment, whatever it takes. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, on Saturday, it was reported in the media of a place in Nandi called the Kingwal Swamp which is about 5000 acres. Members of the public torched this swamp and burnt it to the ground. This swamp is home to a very rare antelope in this country called Sitatunga. Right now, they have fled and bodies of the antelopes have been collected, just because there was a disagreement between the community and the Kenya Wild Service (KWS). The community felt that the poachers had been wrongly arrested. Therefore, the public took their anger on the swamp. That has a far-reaching impact and these problems can be sorted out if we include the community in our efforts to conserve the environment. Therefore, one thing this Bill seeks to address is to entrench public participation because if we leave it to the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) to fight these wars, and they are fighting from Kakamega to Nandi to everywhere in this 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."
}