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{
    "id": 612254,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/612254/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 210,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. (Ms.) Abdalla",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 382,
        "legal_name": "Amina Ali Abdalla",
        "slug": "amina-abdalla"
    },
    "content": "Once again, thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker. I beg to move the following Motion:- THAT, this House adopts Sessional Paper No. 10 of 2014 on the National Environment Policy, laid on the Table of the House on Tuesday, 2nd December 2014. I must congratulate the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources. If our environment would be conserved and managed as well as the written words on this policy paper, we would be very far. This policy paper is excessively well written and clearly stipulates the direction the country should be going on matters of environment. However, as a nation we are good at producing papers. As the English say, “the taste of the pudding is in the eating,” I do not think we have good taste buds on matters of tasting the pudding. The pudding is in the pieces of legislation that the Ministry is proposing and today we are dealing with the policy. So, let me deal with this excessively well written policy paper on the environment. This Sessional Paper is very inclusive of all the sectors covered under environment. The policy paper starts with a situational analysis on the problems that Kenya is facing on the environment, the fact that our high population growth, the shrinking productive land and technological changes are contributing to environmental degradation, including unsustainable land use practices, poor soil and water management practices, deforestation and pollution. Allow me to go through some of the major challenges because it is important for Members to appreciate that it is in these challenges that we should incorporate some of the areas that have been mentioned in the Bills that we pass in this House. I am glad that the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources acknowledges that environmental governance and the fact that our laws in the natural resource sector are not harmonised is one of the biggest challenges. We produce legislation on fisheries and yet we do not incorporate Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) in utilisation of fisheries resources. We produce legislation on livestock but we do not incorporate the fact that you need EIAs and other environmental assessments in all these activities. So, the number one challenge to solving environmental problems is the need for us to strengthen our environmental governance through harmonisation of our policies. Our next challenge is the loss of biodiversity. We continue to lose our biodiversity through habitat destruction, overgrazing, deforestation and the like. The challenge of conserving our biodiversity is further weakened by the fact that we now have more institutions answerable on biodiversity. It is a shared function so we not only have to question the Ministry responsible but also the County Executive Committees (CECs) responsible for the environment in the counties. So, in addition to biodiversity in itself being a challenge, the challenges brought about by devolution need to be incorporated in any of the programmes we include to address loss of biodiversity. I want to speak about the valuation of environment and natural resources. In our budgeting processes we assume that environmental goods and services are a public good. When we were considering the Water Bill, I spoke about the fact that many individuals believe that water is a public good. That is why we have a lot of challenges in the water services because many people believe that it should not be marketed at the value that it is. However, on this question of valuation, we end up burdening the communities that conserve resources and because we do not value the goods they conserve, we end up paying them nothing."
}