Kenyan environmentalism is a mess. Despite the accolades received by some, notably Prof Wangari Maathai's Nobel Peace Prize or Dr Paula Kahumbu's National Geographic Award, Kenya's environmentalists have made a career of being the best at attending UN-sponsored conferences and other global and regional workshops on adapting to climate change or managing and reversing bio-diversity losses. However, there is no clear-cut policy on incorporating environmental principles in national and economic development. It's all slogans, and not much else.
In the West, for the most part, much of their scientific and technological advances were made on the back of military innovation. The science of war advanced their knowledge in other areas such as telecommunication and propaganda. Every time we log onto our e-mail addresses or use our smart-phones or watch a new Sylvester Stallone action movie, we are acknowledging the gifts that the US military gave to the production of these technologies.
In Africa, on the other hand, the land, for much of our history, has produced enough for all without the volatile competition engendered by shortages or population growth. Since the advent of colonialism in Africa, the delicate balance between economic progress and personal greed that underpinned indigenous and traditional environmental polices, Africa has slid inexorably towards the failed Western ideas of resource management. The effects of a rapidly-changing climate and an increase in the population of the peoples of Africa, as well as the destruction of the soils of our most arable lands have all served to degrade the environment that is the foundation of our livelihoods so much so that now men and women spend half their working lives attending conferences and workshops on what is to be done to reverse this sorry state of affairs.
Some of the failed ideas being promoted in Kenya have come about on the back of the slow decline in the authority of the State. As recently as 1985, the State was ubiquitous in matters relating to environmental policy in the context of rapid urbanisation. Kibera had yet to gain notoriety for its size, flying toilets or slum tourism. The Permanent Presidential Commission on Soil and Water Conservation was taking the lead, albeit under the leadership and guidance of one Mulu Mutisya, in reversing soil erosion and coping with its effects. However, with the decline of the State, especially as a result of the constant challenges to its coercive authority, the impacts of poor environmental policy were beginning to be felt in food and water security, increased resource-based conflicts and the worsening of the impacts of drought and famine. Phenomena like climate change and biodiversity loss merely exposed the lie that government could solve all our problems.
Nairobi and its environs starkly demonstrate the challenges we face today. In addition to the failures of the State to properly incorporate environmental policy in all spheres of economic and human development, the worsening situation with regard to the Land Question have brought about the effects of environmental policy failures, such as pollution of water sources and complete degradation of soils.
Kikuyu Town, in Kiambu County, has one of the highest population densities in Kenya. The management of land in the County is a microcosm of the management of land nationwide, characterised by subdivision of land to such uneconomical sizes that many of the residents of Kikuyu Town have chosen to invade what was originally government land and claim it as theirs. Under ordinary circumstances, they would be referred to as squatters, but without alternative livelihoods and the perpetuation of the concept of traditional land ownership in Kenya, they are best referred to as environmental squatters. Many of the areas that they have invaded tend to run along river courses, railway lines and roads, areas that were traditionally reserved to the State for use in such mundane activities as waste and sewerage disposal. This leads to conflicts when state agencies continue to carry on as before refusing to acknowledge the presence of these squatters, as is the case between some residents of Kikuyu and Town and the University of Nairobi's Kikuyu Campus.
With the implementation of the Constitution, such challenges as resolving environment-based conflicts will come to the fore and the State will be compelled to balance many rights found in the Bill of Rights including the right to property and environmental rights. In its guaranteeing of socio-economic rights, the government shall be forced to either admit that it is impossible to provide jobs for everyone or that it is impossible for everyone to own land. With continuing urbanisation, it may be necessary to explore other property rights at the expense of the idea that every Kenyan must own a piece of land 'back home'. Only then will a first step have been made to marrying the environmental needs of the nation to its other socio-economic needs.
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