The government, through the Ministry of Water, Sanitation, and Irrigation, is developing a Land Reclamation Policy 2024 to address land degradation in the country.
The draft policy, currently undergoing stakeholder discourse, targets to reclaim and secure land degradation neutrality for degraded lands, marginal lands, wastelands, and wastewater, among others.
The policy also proposes a new institutional and legal framework to support and enable accelerated land reclamation and secure land neutrality.
Speaking during a public participation event held at Sigalagala National Polytechnic in Kakamega County, participants proposed several changes to the policy, including sanctioning land degraders and rewarding good land users.
The participants cited road contractors, mining firms, commercial land users, and farmers as major culprits in land degradation.
“Land Reclamation Policy is aimed at addressing land degradation, which is attributed to factors such as increasing population, poor agricultural land use, de-vegetation and deforestation, invasion of alien species, overstocking, poor water management practices, mining, droughts, floods, and landslides,” said Boniface Azwere from the State Department for Irrigation.
A member of the Agricultural Policy Maker from the ministry, David Ombalo, while speaking at the forum, said the policy also seeks to address aridity and semi-aridity in the country, which occupies 80% of the land and whereby 36% of the population lives, according to the 2019 Kenya National Population Census.
He said the ministry embarked on a programme to enlighten land owners and users on land degradation and reclamation to ensure efficiency.
“We would like to have a land reclamation association to bring everybody on board so that people are involved and not spectators in their own locality,” he added.
He said the Ministry would establish a National Land Reclamation Bureau (NLRB), which will be charged with the responsibility of implementing huge capital investment on reclamation programmes.
He also said the ministry is keen to involve counties in land reclamation through the establishment of the County Land Reclamation Unit (CLRU), which would be responsible for implementing land reclamation policy at the county level, formulating and implementing land reclamation strategies in collaboration with relevant stakeholders, providing technical assistance like surveys and other support services, as well as participate in the mobilization of resources for reclamation programs.
Currently, there is no specific policy, statutory, or other regulatory instrument on land reclamation in the country, hence posing a threat to food security.
The policy comes at a time when Kenya and the world at large are facing unprecedented climate risks that pose serious threats to the country’s sustainable development goals and gains.
By George Ndeto and Innocent Shititah
