First comes a road. Then utilities. Then nothing left.
That is the warning from the Green Belt Movement as the Senate passed a law that activists say could make it easier to build infrastructure inside the country's gazetted public forests.
The Senate passed the Forest Conservation and Management (Amendment) Bill, 2025, on May 14 with 31 votes in favour, none against, and no abstentions. The Bill had been read for the first time in the Senate on May 5, where it was committed to the Standing Committee on Land, Environment and Natural Resources.
The amendment to Section 56(2) of the Forest Conservation and Management Act, 2016, grants the Kenya Forest Service powers to approve easements for public roads, infrastructure projects, and utility wayleaves within public forests. Supporters say it is a necessary clarification. Critics say it is something more dangerous.
"This is not a coincidence, it is a pattern," the Green Belt Movement said in response to the Senate vote. "First comes a road, then utilities, then temporary access, then commercial developments. Slowly, public forests disappear piece by piece until nothing remains," the organisation said.
A country that has been here before
Kenya has spent the better part of two years fighting a separate, closely watched battle over a road through the Aberdare forest.
Conservationists have challenged the Ihithe-Ndunyu Njeru road construction project in the courts since 2009, arguing it threatens the Aberdare ecosystem and its wildlife. In January 2024, the National Environment Management Authority (Nema) issued a licence for construction of a tarmac road through the Aberdare Range to connect Nyeri and Nyandarua counties. That licence came days after President William Ruto vowed to proceed with the project despite earlier opposition from KFS, KWS, and Nema itself, which had withheld approval citing potential disruption of the Aberdare ecosystem.
According to the licence, 75 hectares of bamboo, 14 hectares of montane forest, and 14 hectares of moorlands would be destroyed in the construction.
A section of Karura Forest where eucalyptus trees have been felled.
Photo credit: Brygettes Ngana I Nation Media Group
Petitioners told the court that Aberdare supplies 80 per cent of the water Nairobi City County uses through Sasumua and Ndakaini dams, and generates 55 per cent of Kenya's hydroelectric power. A conservatory order halting construction was issued in April 2024 and has since been extended, with the court requesting the Chief Justice to appoint a bench of judges to hear the case.
The Aberdares dispute is one chapter in a longer story. Kenya's Mau Forest Complex, the largest closed-canopy montane forest ecosystem in East Africa, lost approximately 25 per cent of its cover between 1973 and 2013 through a combination of excisions, illegal logging, charcoal burning, and encroachment for settlement and farming.
Mombasa Senator Mohamed Faki at Ole Sereni Hotel in Nairobi during the Inter-Parliamentary Union Africa Regional Parliamentary Seminar on Climate Change and Methane Emissions Reduction on May 15, 2026.
Photo credit: Evans Habil I Nation Media Group
"Kenyans must not be deceived by the language of public utility and public installations," the organisation said. "This amendment is not innocent. It is a dangerous legal pathway being created to open up our public forests to roads, infrastructure, utilities, commercial interests and eventual destruction. In Karura Forest, there was an attempt to excise 51.64 hectares for the expansion of Kiambu Road," GBM added. "It took public outrage, legal action and the intervention of the courts to stop the destruction."
Senator Faki Mohamed, chairperson of the Senate Committee on Lands, Environment and Natural Resources, has been the amendment's most prominent defender. He said the law has been misread.
"An easement and a right of way does not confer any proprietary interest," he said. "It is just like a right of way, it does not transfer land. No land is being alienated."
He argued the amendment is not a radical shift in forest governance but a refinement of existing legal provisions, intended to clarify how public infrastructure can legally pass through protected land where necessary.
"Our view was that the amendment does not take away or limit the powers of the National Land Commission to allocate land," he said. "An easement and a right of way fall within what we refer to as easements."
He likened it to an everyday situation. "If my house is next to your land and I cannot access it without passing through your land, I ask for an easement," he said.
He also pointed to infrastructure precedent. "When they were doing the SGR, they had to pass through Tsavo National Park. That was a wayleave.” Senator Faki also said the Bill included institutional reforms within KFS beyond the easement provision.
"There is now a minimum qualification for the director of Kenya Forest Service. They must have a degree in forestry.”
"If they feel there is a need, we can amend it," he said. "We can qualify the grant of easement so that you first get approval from the National Land Commission."
The constitutional question
Greenpeace Africa has argued that the amendment conflicts with Kenya's Constitution. Under Article 62(1)(g), all government forests are classified as public land. Article 62(2) vests management of public land in the National Land Commission. Granting easements and wayleaves, Greenpeace argues, constitutes an interest in land, and that power belongs constitutionally to the National Land Commission, not to the Kenya Forest Service.
Green Belt made a similar argument when it appeared before the Senate committee on May 7. Its representative said Section 56 already allows KFS to issue temporary authorisations such as permits, timber licences, and special user licences. "All these authorisations are temporary and we are okay with them,"
Green Belt said. "But what we are opposing is the attempt to give authority to issue easements for roads and public installations inside forests."
Senator Faki dismissed that reading. "It does not derogate from the power of the National Land Commission," he said.
George Tarus from the State Department of Forestry defended the amendment as one that tightens rather than loosens oversight of forest access.
"The reason for the proposal is to provide more guardrails on forest access and usage," he said. "Currently, people are able to access public forests for uses that are even private in nature."
"Before any public investment in a forest, an Environmental Impact Assessment must be undertaken," he said.
He also insisted the process had been inclusive. "We have involved the entire republic. This is a public process, not a private one." [email protected]
