Deforestation and democratization: patronage, politics and forests in Kenya

Abstract

Current approaches for halting and reversing deforestation centrally involve better “environmental governance” over forests. Better public oversight and regulation of the forest commons is thus linked to democratization. Yet evidence suggests that in a number of important cases, democratization can accelerate deforestation. Using the cases of South Nandi and Karura Forests in Kenya, this article argues that to understand why requires more careful examination of how forests are incorporated into patronage networks and how these networks are impacted by democratization struggles. Specifically, this article argues that accelerated deforestation occurs when institutional configurations allow abuse and create opportunity for forests to become incorporated into patronage networks. Democratization can then exacerbate deforestation when, as in Kenya, more competitive elections produce stresses on these patronage networks and hence create incentives for state actors to increase accumulation of forest resources for political purposes. Further, the overall volatility of democratization struggles, which makes changes in government more likely, creates incentives for those with privileged access to forests to accumulate more rapidly with no concern for sustainability in the long run. However, such forest encroachments may also generate resistance and movements aimed at re-imposing regulation on the use of the forest. When successful, these struggles over forests can both deepen democratization and transform institutional configurations to better protect forests.

Keywords:

• deforestation
• democratization
• Kenya
• Karura Forest
• South Nandi Forest
• patronage

Notes

1. Pimm, The World According to Pimm; World Bank, At Loggerheads?

2. Republic of Kenya (henceforth RoK), Report of the Government's Task Force on the Conservation of the Mau Forests Complex, 15–16. These ecosystem services include river flow regulation, flood mitigation, water storage, reduced soil erosion, biodiversity, carbon sequestration, carbon reservoir, and microclimate regulation.

3. Klein Goldewijk, “Estimating Global Land Use Change over the Past 300 Years”; Lung and Schaab, “A Comparative Assessment of Land Cover Dynamics.” In East Africa tropical forest areas show a deforestation rate for 1990 to 2000 four times higher than the world average. FAO, State of the World's Forests.

4. Geist and Lambin, “Proximate Causes and Underlying Driving Forces of Tropical Deforestation.”

5. Barr and McGrew, “Landscape-Level Tree Management in Meru Central District, Kenya,” 17; see also Brown et al., “Forest Law Enforcement and Governance”; Dauvergne, Shadows in the Forest.

6. See for example, World Bank, At Loggerheads?; World Resources Institute, Decisions for the Earth.

7. Anderson, Nature, Wealth and Power; de Campos, “Global Change and the Political Economy of Sustainable Development in Brazil”; Grainger, “Bringing Tropical Deforestation Under Control”; Ribot, Waiting for Democracy.

8. Deacon, “Deforestation, Investment and Political Instability”; Klopp, “Pilfering the Public.”

9. The Forest Act 2005 requires parliamentary approval for excision of national forests and also allows for more local participation in forest management.

10. Geist and Lambin, “Proximate Causes and Underlying Driving Forces of Tropical Deforestation”; Deacon, “Deforestation, Investment and Political Instability”; Klopp “Pilfering the Public”; Seymour and Mugabe, “Kenya”; Le Billon, “The Political Ecology of Transition in Cambodia 1989–1999”; Smith et al., “Illegal Logging, Collusive Corruption and Fragmented Governments”; Laurance, “The Perils of Payoff”; Njeru, “‘Donor-Driven’ Neoliberal Reform Processes, ‘Democratization’ and the Production of Deforestation in Kenya”; Jeremia Njeru, “‘Defying’ Democratization and Environmental Protection in Kenya.” I use the term “democratization struggles” to emphasize the contested nature of change. I understand democratization to mean much more than competitive elections but to involve un-coerced participation, political space and transparency in policy-making including critically over natural resources.

11. Other economics driven models focus on value of rents from agriculture versus forest rents (see, for example, Angelsen, “Forest Cover Change in Space and Time.”)

12. Klopp, “Pilfering the Public”; Dauvergne, Shadows in the Forest; Malla, “Changing Policies and the Persistence of Patron–Client Relations in Nepal.” The World Conservation Union notes that “logs continue to be the preferred currency of political patronage in many countries with old growth forests.” Rietbergen, Forests – A Century of Destruction, 1. Similarly, a Greenpeace study of logging concessions to the Malaysian conglomerate Rimbunan Hijua, argues that such companies “cultivate a network of political patronage that breeds off political systems that are under immense stress.” Greenpeace, The Untouchables, 3.

13. Scott, “Patron–Client Politics and Political Change in South-East Asia,” 111–12.

14. Ihonvbere, “Nigeria: Militarization and Perpetual Transition.”

15. This dynamic is also present in Indonesia. Dauvergne, “The Politics of Deforestation in Indonesia,” 512.

16. Deacon, “Deforestation, Investment and Political Instability.”

17. Buergin and Kessler, “Intrusions and Exclusions”; Maathai, Unbowed: A Memoir; Cox, Arnold, and Villamayor-Tomás, “A Review and Reassessment of Design Principles for Community-Based Natural Resource Management”; Smith et al., “Illegal Logging, Collusive Corruption and Fragmented Governments.”

18. Seymour and Mugabe, “Kenya.”

19. Kimaiyo, Ogiek Land Cases and Historical Injustices 1902–2004, 88.

20. Klopp “Pilfering the Public”; RoK, Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Law System of Kenya; RoK, Report on the Commission of Inquiry into the Illegal/Irregular Allocation of Public Land.

21. Daily Nation, March 1, 1999.

22. Daily Nation, April 25, 1997.

23. RoK, Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Law System of Kenya, 59; RoK, Report on the Commission of Inquiry into the Illegal/Irregular Allocation of Public Land, 150–9. On spikes in land grabbing prior to elections, see RoK Report on the Commission of Inquiry into the Illegal/Irregular Allocation of Public Land, 83.

24. The 1.7% figure comes from UNEP, An Assessment of the Status of the World's Remaining Closed Forests. The 2–3% estimate is most widely used.

25. Matiru, Forest Cover and Forest Reserves in Kenya, 19; RoK, Report on the Commission of Inquiry into the Illegal/Irregular Allocation of Public Land. In the early 1990s Forestry Department statistics suggested 2.2 million ha of forest cover, but earlier satellite data suggested less than 1.3 million ha. KIFCON, Kenya Indigenous Forest Conservation Programme, 5. Indeed, according to the Government's Statistical Abstracts forest cover did not change between 1990 and 1998, even though a record of legalized excisions shows change. See RoK, Statistical Abstracts 1991 and 1998, and for a list of gazetted excisions see Matiru, Forest Cover and Forest Reserves in Kenya.

26. This is the same figure cited in the KIFCON report which came out of the DFID funded survey.

27. Njuguna, Mbegera, and Mbithi, Reconnaissance Survey of Forest Blocks in the West and East Rift Valley, cited in Gachanja, “Public Perception of Forests as a Motor for Change,” 60.

28. I am grateful to Dr Gertrud Schaab for her communications on this point. Of course, limitations exist to remote sensing data, for example, satellite photos may not catch the change in biodiversity caused by planting commercial trees within forests and the vegetation that covers deforested land can give the same reading as trees. See Pimm, The World According to Pimm, 64.

29. Castro, Facing Kirinyaga, 1.

30. See, for example, the case of Lembus Forest and the concession granted to Ewart Grogan; Anderson, “Managing the Forest.”

31. A. Ochola, “Rescuing a Forest Plundered by its Custodians,” East African Standard, July 10, 2006, 2.

32. Ongugo and Njuguna, “Effects of Decentralization Policies on Forest Management,” 14.

33. Barr and McGrew, “Landscape-Level Tree Management in Meru Central District, Kenya,” 29; Okowa-Bennun and Mwangi, “Land Tenure and Forest Resource Management,” 188–9; Kagombe and Gitonga, Plantation Establishment in Kenya, 11.

34. Lung and Schaab, “Change Detection in Western Kenya”; T. Lung Landbedeckungsänderungen im Gebiet “Kakamega Forest und assoziierte Waldgebiete” (Westkenia), 89.

35. African Development Bank, “Kenya – Evaluation of Bank Assistance,” 11.

36. Widner, The Rise of the Party-State in Kenya, 180; Gachanga, “Public Perception of Forests as a Motor for Change,” 8; RoK, Report on the Commission of Inquiry into the Illegal/Irregular Allocation of Public Land, 158–9.

37. A. Ochola, “Rescuing a Forest Plundered by its Custodians,” East African Standard, July 10, 2006, 2. I personally witnessed the same process in Kakamega in 1998 where the “project” was an agricultural showground even though one already existed although it too would be “grabbed.” A visit would suggest that peasant farmers had encroached on the forest since the place was planted with maize. However, on closer examination it became clear that the new owner of the land was in fact leasing it out to earn rent.

38. Personal communication with Kiprotich Siele, November 8, 2004; A. Ochola, “Rescuing a Forest Plundered by its Custodians,” East African Standard, July 10, 2006.

39. See Peter Ng'etich, “Kenya: Outcry Over ‘Political Allocation’ of Forest land,” Daily Nation, February 8, 2002.

40. Kenya Forest Working Group, minutes on monthly meetings, January 24, 2003. Available online at www.kenyaforests.org/minutes/minutes_charcoal.pdf.

41. J. Mbaria, “Kenya's Plot to Legalise Forest Excisions,” East African, January 14, 2002. The 2004 Commission of Inquiry noted the same excision but put it at 23.66 ha. RoK, Report of the Commission of Inquiry into Illegal/Irregular Land, Annex 2, 22.

42. Anonymous interview, 2001. Contrast this with a recent African Development Fund Appraisal linked to more funding for the NTZDC which “successfully implemented a Bank financed project between 1992 and 2001 that was aimed at protecting Kenya's forest reserves from encroachment through the establishment of forest plantations and tea belts as physical buffers to forests.” African Development Bank, “Kenya – Evaluation of Bank Assistance,” 7.

43. RoK, Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Law System of Kenya, vol. 2, 22.

44. In 1989, Hon. J.J. Kamotho, Secretary General of KANU, was allocated 2.7 ha, purportedly as part of a land exchange.

45. RoK, Report of the Commission of Inquiry into Illegal/Irregular Land, vol. 1, 225, vol. 2, Annex 3.

46. Daily Nation, October 9, 1998.

47. For Wangari Maathai's firsthand account see her memoir Unbowed, 261–72.

48. Daily Nation, October 8, 1998.

49. Daily Nation, October 8, 1998.

50. Daily Nation, November 13, 1998.

51. To underscore the illicit nature of this excision and unreliability of the public record of such excisions, the Kenya Forest Working Group found when they investigated the matter legal procedures had not been followed. For example, legal Notice No. 43 of the Kenya Gazette which announced excisions of Karura Forest used a boundary plan for East Mau forest (Daily Nation, February 7, 1999). See also Greenbelt Movement, “Forest Policy and Practice in Conflict in Kenya.”

52. Daily Nation, November 13, 1998.

53. Daily Nation, November 14, 1998; Daily Nation, November 16, 1998.

54. This was later confirmed in Rok, Report of the Commission of Inquiry into Illegal/Irregular Land.

55. For more details including a full list of the companies see Daily Nation, November 15–18, 1998.

56. Daily Nation, February 11, 1998. The report Unjust Enrichment found that one acre of Karura land was worth 6.8million K. sh. at the time [approximately $100, 000]. The value of the excised land thus exceeds 8 billion K. sh. [approximately $100 million]. Kenya National Commission on Human Rights and the Kenya Land Alliance, Unjust Enrichment, 9.

57. Kenya Human Rights Commission Quarterly Report, 2003; RoK, Report of the Judicial Commission Appointed to Inquire into the Tribal Clashes in Kenya, 277. Forests also got burned down in this violence – both as attackers tried to smoke out people sheltering in forests and as local people tried to prevent attackers from using local forests as bases. For example, in the first week of March 1992, one official suggested that 1700 ha of forest had been burned down this way (Daily Nation, July 12, 1992).

58. Daily Nation, November 18, 1998.

59. Daily Nation, January 9, 1999.

60. The Attorney General himself has many connections to the UN and was once appointed as the Special Rapporteur on Torture. Hence, it was likely that he was attempting to defend his personal position as well as the government from attack.

61. Weekly Review, January 15, 1999.

62. Standard, January 31, 1999.

63. The People, February 1, 1999.

64. The People, February 3, 1999.

65. Maathai, Unbowed: A Memoir, 271.

66. A team of trained pollsters conducted interviews in streets, market centers, and other public places. They polled 5000 Kenyans, with the geographical distribution weighted according to the adult population registered to vote in the 1997 election, using the most recent statistics available at the time (which, if biased, would be in favor of pro-KANU areas). For further details see Daily Nation, March 23, 1999.

67. Daily Nation, March 23, 1999.

68. Kenya Human Rights Commission, Quarterly Report.

69. Njeru, “‘Defying’ Democratization and Environmental Protection in Kenya,” 340; Duncan Ndotono, “Friends of Karura Forest Triumph As Park Opens to Public,” Nairobi Star, March 3, 2011. Current charges to enter the park for Kenyans are 100 K. sh. (adult) and 20 K. sh. (child) which while very little for middle-class Kenyans is still outside the reach of the very poor including those in neighboring slums.

70. Kenya Forests Working Group, Minutes of meetings for 2004, http://www.kenyaforests.org/index.php?option = com_remository&Itemid = 79&func = fileinfo&id = 25&date = 2017-10-01; Lambrechts et al., “Aerial Monitoring of Forest Boundaries.”

71. See Mathews Ndanyi, “Rift MPs Oppose Nandi World Bank Dam,” Nairobi Star, May 3, 2011; Tom Matoke, “Leaders Oppose Planned Dam in Nandi Forest,” Business Daily, February 16, 2011.

72. Githiga and Mburu, “Local Communities’ Incentives for Forest Conservation.”

73. Agrawal, “Common Property Institutions and Sustainable Governance of Resources”; Ribot, Waiting for Democracy.

74. Matter, “Clashing Claims”; Matter, “Struggles over Belonging.”

75. Agrawal and Ostrom, “Collective Action, Property Rights and Decentralization in Resource Use in India and Nepal”; Ribot, Waiting for Democracy.

76. Tendler, Good Government in the Tropics.

77. Maathai, Nobel Peace Prize Lecture.

78. Buergin and Kessler, “Intrusions and Exclusions”; Rosser, Roesad, and Edwin, “Indonesia: The Politics of Inclusion.”

79. Sivaramakrishnan, “Crafting the Public Sphere in the Forests of West Bengal.”

80. See also the cases of the Mau Forest (Klopp and Sang, “Maps, Power, and the Destruction of the Mau Forest in Kenya”) and Enoosupukia (Matter, “Clashing Claims” and “Struggles over Belonging.”