Even before the lift of the ban, we’ve had illegal logging instances. The idea that loggers will choose old trees and leave young trees most times is a fallacy that ends up being misused. It’s usually left to the loggers’ discretion to decide what tree is mature or not.

We are likely to lose lots of gains in achieving the 10% bare minimum forest cover, especially since the Rift region holds the highlands supporting better tree-growing conditions. 

There should be more multi-stakeholder deliberation on the lifting of the logging ban. Even more, there are more risks that logging will have to livelihoods, rivers, wildlife, and our environment, which all affect the economy we are trying to build in the long run.

Ideas around carbon market, eco-tourism, apiculture, among others, are options we can explore to compensate communities that are custodians of rich forested areas. In 5-10 years, what will we reflect on the road map of achieving 15bn trees amidst a growing climate crisis?