ONDUTO

KARURA FOREST A SAFE HAVEN FOR POSTERITY Kenya Forest Service has noted a petition doing rounds online, urging the public to sign up and support a reverse to recent changes to direct all gate charges and other fees to be made through the eCitizen platform. The petition is urging the public to push for a return to the previous system whereby the Community Forest Association was collecting all revenue and utilizing it to fund management of the forest. The petition further alleges there is danger of Karura forest becoming an insecure area and there are chances of grabbing and encroachment. This is completely false and the Service wishes to reassure the public as follows: 1. The decision to move revenue collection to the e-Citizen platform is informed by a Government directive. Gazette Notice No 16008 of 2022 directs all national government revenues received by national government entities be collected into the E-Citizen platform. 2. Apart from changing the mode of revenue collection, all other aspects of joint co-managemement of Karura forest remain the same. The Forest Conservation and Management Act, 2016 requires the Service to work with forest adjacent communities to co-manage all gazetted forests. 3. Security of Karura forest is assured due to the existence of an electric fence and continous patrols by Forest Rangers and Community scouts. This will not change. 4. The Karura CFA employees will continue with their normal duties and the notion there will be job losses is false and misleading and none of these employees have received any communication to terminate their services. 5. Despite this reassurance, the management of the CFA has warned these employees to boycott work with only a handful reporting back to their normal duties. 6. The narrative that is being used by the CFA to keep reminding the public of how insecure Karura forest was in the past is misleading because there is no possibility of reversing gains made over the years. This is because of the law that now governs management of forests in Kenya, which was not the case prior to 2007, when forests were managed by the Forest Department through Forest Act (Cap 385). In the past three decades Kenya has witnessed Forest Sector Reforms which have secured all forest blocks for posterity. 7. Participatory Forest Management Plans have proved to be successful in the conservation, protection and management of all 179 forest blocks countrywide. CFAs benefit from various user rights such as bee -keeping, eco tourism, collection of medicinal herbs and fuelwood among other benefits. As per the PFMP of Karura forest, CFA members will continue to access agreed upon user rights. 8. Despite efforts to spread false information to scare off visitors, the public has continued streaming into the forest to undertake various recreational activities. Kenya Forest Service is committed to uphold high standards and to provide professional services within Karura forests to ensure it remains a premier urban green space. 9. The public is therefore urged to disregard the online petition and seek clarification from Kenya Forest Service on any matter of concern. All are welcome to visit Karura and gates open between 6.00am to 6.00pm daily.