Kenya is moving to reposition forestry from a largely conservation-driven activity into a fully fledged economic sector, backed by fresh international climate financing and a renewed push into commercial tree-growing.
The shift follows approval of roughly Sh29.6 billion in new external funding for forest and landscape-based development, made up of about Sh25.9 billion from the World Bank and Sh3.7 billion from the Green Climate Fund earmarked for the Lake Region. According to an assessment by international forest-finance researchers, the more pressing question for Kenya is no longer how much money is committed to forests, but whether restoration and commercial tree-growing can be turned into a genuinely bankable industry that creates jobs, supports farmers and feeds local manufacturers.
That challenge is underscored by recent government data showing newly established forest plantations shrank to about 4,400 hectares last year, down from 4,900 hectares the year before, even as national forest cover held at roughly 8.8 per cent. The figures highlight a gap between high-profile tree-planting drives and the harder task of growing plantations that survive to maturity and supply industry.
Kenya has increased its forestry budget significantly over the past two financial years, and officials estimate the country will ultimately need around Sh176 billion to fully develop commercial tree-growing and wood-processing capacity. Projections in an industrial wood-sector strategy suggest the sub-sector’s contribution to GDP could rise from about Sh5 billion currently to Sh137 billion by 2050, with full-time forestry jobs climbing from roughly 15,000 to 85,000 a year and the number of participating households growing from 2.7 million to 7.5 million.
Principal Secretary for Forestry Gitonga Mugambi said the country has planted more than a billion trees in the past two years, compared with 38 million under the previous administration, and called for closer collaboration between government, investors, researchers and communities to build out the sector’s value chain, from nurseries and seed collection to sawmilling and furniture-making.
Officials acknowledge that private capital has been slow to follow public financing into forestry, given the sector’s long investment horizons compared with annual crops. They are pushing for blended finance and guarantees to de-risk early investment, alongside tighter enforcement against illegal logging, which government crime researchers say remains entrenched in parts of the sector.