Timber theft leads to degradation of critical habitat for endangered animals

Timber merchants mercillesly  choping tree- Kibwezi, photo by Carolyne Kyalo

Rampant Deforestation of tropical forests constitutes to one of the greatest threats to biodiversity and the conservation of nature. Incredibly, fauna and flora in Kenya is the most endangered on Earth. Though selective timber harvest is part of a silvicultural system used to create or maintain an uneven-aged forest, preservation of critical forest habitats for endangered biodiversity is a difficult and largely unsolved problem.

It requires identifying the critical habitats and excluding all competitive uses from them. Reducing the incentives for forest land conversion to agriculture will help protect some critical habitats in select regions of new development. Moreover, the problem will only compound in any region where local development is associated with further clearing of the forest.

Given the economic, ecological, and climatic importance of plants, scientists will continue to discover ways to facilitate their genome characterization. Trees have significance importances in our lives and “every tree counts in environment conservation”. We manage trees on a landscape to know that they are correctly identified, their geographic source and adaptive characteristics. This can be probably be adopted by utilizing .DNA markers technology. This will be attained through biodiversity recovery and creation of  local carbon sinks to compact global climate change.

In my current research on landscaping and mitigation measures to climate change in Eastern part of Kenya, the key aspects of controlling timber theft, is by sensitizing the community thorough outreach programs on nature restoration . This will be enhanced by propagating of both indigenous and exotic trees nursery management, and pilot plantations timber utilization till maturity time. Most under-utilized tree in this area is Melia volkensii. a tree extraordinary economic importance smallholder farmer

Wild life Animals

Habitat loss for forest animals due to illegal logging contributes to increased deforestations and remains threat to wildlife and other endangered animals.