Deforestation Costing Kenyan Economy Millions of Dollars Each Year and Increasing Water Shortage Risk, UNEP and Kenya Forest Service Report Finds / Services from Kenya’s Water Towers Underpin Many Sectors of Economy
NAIROBI, Kenya, November 5, 2012/African Press Organization (APO)/ – Deforestation deprived Kenya’s economy of 5.8 billion shillings ($US 68 million) in 2010 and 6.6 billion shillings in 2009, far outstripping the roughly 1.3 billion shillings injected from forestry and logging each year, according to a joint Kenya Forest Service (KFS) and UN Environment Programme (UNEP) report.
The ongoing work of the KFS, together with the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) and international partners, says that the contribution of forests is undervalued by 2.5 per cent, putting the estimate of its annual contribution to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) at around 3.6 per cent.
Hon. Dr. Noah Wekesa, Kenya’s Minister of Forestry and Wildlife, said the report – entitled ‘The ...