The Environment and Lands Court sitting in Nairobi has declared President William Ruto's directive to allow logging in forests across the country is illegal and unconstitutional.
A judgement issued by Justice Oscar Angote on Thursday, October 12, 2023, concurred with the Law Society of Kenya's arguments that Ruto's order that lifted a countrywide ban on logging was done illegally without following the due process and the law since proper public participation was not done.
"I find that lifting of the moratorium was done without proactive disclosure of information and public participation," the Judged ruled.
Further, Justice Angote has also revoked consent orders filed at Nyeri and the Meru High Court between the logging companies in the counties and the Kenya Forest Service (KFS) on grounds that same were commercial in nature since there was no evidence of public participation placed before the court before lifting the moratorium in the consent orders.
"A declaration is hereby issued that the lifting of the moratorium in the Nyeri and Meru High Court lacked public participation and is therefore null and void," the Judge ordered
Consequently, the judge has ordered that LSK and Kenyans be involved in making and formulating laws, rules and guidelines to govern logging activities in the country before the ban can be lifted.
Justice Angote has further barred the government from granting licences or permits to log and felling of trees of any nature in any forest in the country.
The judge however partially issued orders allowing the harvesting of 5,000 hectares of mature and overmature trees in forests under the supervision of KFS and the Multi-Agency Team Harvesting and the same to be done strictly in accordance with the Environment Management and Coordination Act, the Forest Conservation and Management Act and the Forest and Conservation Harvesting Rules.
The court also directed that the recommendations of the task force on logging be upheld in furtherance of Article 69 of the Constitution.
Justice Angote also ordered the government to engage all stakeholders and proper public participation to be done before the ban on logging is lifted and file the implementation matrix they have put in place within three months of his judgement today.
"I direct the implementation programme to include the proactive disclosure by the Respondents(the government) on the Strategic Plan, Forest Management Plan and Felling Plan and an order of mandamus is hereby issued against the Respondent to implement the implementation Matrix to be filed not later than 3 months of the interim judgment," the judge ruled.
The decision by the court comes after LSK through its president Eric Theuri challenged Ruto's order to lift the ban that was put by the former administration in 2018.
LSK had argued before the Environment Court that there were no scientific reasons or research that had been done to justify the lifting of the ban.
Additionally, Theuri argued that there was no specific environmental assessment impact or public participation leading to the lifting of the moratorium.
The court heard that following the directives by the Head of State, KFS hurriedly posted what appeared as guidelines on the conduct of logging activities on its Twitter handle, devoid of public participation, reason and rationale for the logging, despite it being required by its establishing statute.
"The destruction of our national forests through unchecked logging, degazettement of areas under forests, and re-introduction of Shamba System has a devastating impact on Kenya’s water towers which are increasingly drying up," the LSK told the judge.
Through lawyer Kennedy Waweru, LSK also informed the judge that the constitution provides that the decisions of the President ought to be in writing, however, the lifting of the ban has not been done, "opening a chance for abuse, uncertainty and exploitation however well intended by the Head of State."
While lifting the ban in July this year, Ruto had argued that it had hurt Kenya economically, especially in areas where people depended on logging as their main activity.
"We have decided to open up the forest and harvest timber so that we can create jobs for our youth and open up businesses," Ruto had stated while lifting the ban.
He added that the decision would not destroy the country's water catchment areas as his administration would plant 15 billion trees in a decade.
