{"id":4507,"date":"2019-08-13T10:26:57","date_gmt":"2019-08-13T07:26:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africasustainabilitymatters.com\/?p=4507"},"modified":"2026-01-11T05:30:28","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T05:30:28","slug":"kenya-must-act-fast-to-reverse-deforestation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/2019\/08\/13\/kenya-must-act-fast-to-reverse-deforestation\/","title":{"rendered":"Kenya Must Act Fast To Reverse Deforestation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong><em>By Gabriel Rugalema and Susan Mugwe <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to the World Bank data, in 2015 Kenya\u2019s forest\narea was 44,130 km2 or 4,413,000 hectares. Currently, we are losing 50,000\nhectares of forest each year through deforestation primarily due to the\nemergence of an expanding affluent society that wants to dine on steak, drive\ncars, recline on comfortable seats, live in elegant houses and consume fresh\nfruits and vegetables. To meet this demand, commercial agriculture for products\nsuch as livestock, horticulture, timber and rubber are increasingly encroaching\non forest lands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This translates to a\nloss of 1.13 percent forest cover annually and amounts to a loss of Sh 1.9\nbillion every year (Kenya Forestry Services(KFS) \u2013 Kenya Open Portal Data). If\nall factors hold constant, and if we do nothing to reverse it, Kenya shall be a\ncomplete desert in 113 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Why should we care\nabout a declining forest cover?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One tree can supply\noxygen for up to four people on earth per day and absorb more than 21 kg of\ncarbon dioxide per year. Trees serve as natural sponges, collecting rainfall\nand filtering sediments and other pollutants from the water in the soil before it\nreaches a water source. It then releases it slowly into streams and rivers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Global projections\nindicate that the demand for water will increase by 2050, and more than 55\npercent will be towards manufacturing, electricity generation and domestic use.\nThis will leave 240 million people without access to fresh drinking water, and\nanother 1.4 billion people without access to sanitation\u2026<a href=\"https:\/\/www.businessdailyafrica.com\/analysis\/ideas\/Kenya-must-act-fast-to-reverse-deforestation\/4259414-5232946-adsna3\/index.html\">read\nmore&gt;&gt;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Gabriel Rugalema and Susan Mugwe According to the World Bank data, in 2015 Kenya\u2019s forest area was 44,130 km2 or 4,413,000 hectares. Currently, we are losing 50,000 hectares of&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4508,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4507\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}