Government To Develop A Single Integrated Ecosystem-Based Natural Resource Conservation Policy To Promote Wildlife Conservation And Sustainable Use Of Natural Resources – 5/08/2024

Ministries involved in the management and regulation of various natural resource across the country have come together to review various policies in the sector with a view of developing a single Integrated Ecosystem-Based Natural resource Conservation policy to promote sustainable utilization and encourage conservation of wildlife and biodiversity.

The Principal secretary for the State department for wildlife, Ms Silvia Museiya said conflicting government policies and laws on natural resources administered by different government State Departments have been singled out as cause for environmental degradation associated with the constant decline in wildlife species and biodiversity adding that it was important to come up with a broad-based policy that safeguards natural resources across board.

Speaking at the Serena Hotel today during a meeting that brought together natural resource stakeholders and Principal Secretaries from State Departments for Agriculture, Water and Irrigation, Mining, Blue Economy, Environment, Energy, Lands. Ms Museiya said the respective State Departments have agreed on the need for urgent efforts to develop a single Integrated Ecosystem-Based Natural resource Conservation policy to stop the worrying decline of wildlife species and biodiversity, environmental pollution to promote conservation

The Principal Secretary noted that natural resource sector covering wildlife, agriculture, Energy and mining, water resources, environment and livestock had discordant laws and policies that hampered government the Ministries from working together to promote wildlife conservation and sustainable use of natural resources.

Ms Museiya said land was the foundation of conservation yet different government Ministries had varying laws and regulations that precipitated conflicts and fights among government Department in the process of utilization. She said the envisaged Integrated Ecosystem-Based Natural resource Conservation policy aims to guide the natural resource utilization and resolve the conflicts in the sector.

Stakeholder engagements, she noted, have been initiated to come up with a framework to harmonize the conflicting polices to strengthen governance in natural resource sector and promote community resilience.

The Principal Secretary cited licensing of land use for mining, agriculture and energy generation that lead to degradation and loss of wildlife habitat while licensing of fishing and exploitation of forestry resources violate policies and laws that promote wildlife protected areas respectively as some of the major challenges experience in the sector.

Ms Museiya noted that there was need to determine and quantify the value of the country’s wildlife and natural resources to gain recognition as a factor of economic production to attract adequate resource allocation to facilitate conservation.

The Principal Secretary noted that although there was a lot of data on natural resources hosted by various government research departments, but the data had neither been simplified nor availed to policy makers.

By Cheruiyot Korir