Environmental Laws In Kenya: A Complete Legal Guide

Kenya is a country that has been blessed with a lot of natural resources, including grassland savannahs teeming with wildlife, lush green forests, and pristine white beaches. Not only do these resources have aesthetic value, but they also offer economic value, making them a key part of our GDP. To help ensure that these natural resources, including expensive metals found in Kenya, are well managed and for the good of all, Kenya has enacted several environmental laws.

What are the Main Environmental Laws in Kenya?

We have several environmental laws governing the use of resources in our country. These laws include the Environmental Management and Coordination Act, 1999 (Cap. 387), which is a fundamental piece of legislation that has helped to ensure that the environment is well managed.

To this end, this Act has clear regulations such as how to dispose of waste and how to regulate and deal with pollution (including noise pollution), and it also provides for environmental impact assessment reports when coming up with new developments such as buildings. These assessments take place to ensure that those developments do not negatively impact the environment they are in.

It is important to note that it is mandatory that before new buildings are constructed, they must first get an environmental impact assessment report from the National Environmental Management Authority (NEMA), which was established in 1999 under the provisions of the Environmental Management and Coordination Act Of 1999.

Should a proposed building fail to meet the threshold or be seen as having a potential negative impact on the environment, such a project can be canceled altogether by the National Environmental Management Authority, which is mandated by our laws to do so, specifically under the Environmental Management and Coordination Act Of 1999. Where the National Environmental Management Authority suggests that the negative effects of that project can be reduced, the development can continue if the environmental risk mitigation approaches are sufficient to protect the environment from adverse effects.

This is, hence, a pivotal piece of legislation as it helps to protect our environment and balances the need for economic gain against the need to protect and manage our environment.

Roles of the National Management Authority

Besides conducting environmental impact assessments and categorizing developments per their potential effects, the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) is also tasked with several other functions, including the following:

It has the mandate to ensure that we protect our natural resources and that we manage and conserve them.
It has the mandate to peruse all environmental impact assessment reports on all new construction projects in our country. Based on this information, it can choose to approve those that meet the required threshold and to cancel or suggest mitigation measures to those that do not.
It has the mandate to educate the public on the value of protecting, conserving, and managing our natural resources.
It has the mandate to keep track of all our natural resources.
It has the mandate to work with other government agencies to ensure the protection, conservation, and prudent management of all our natural resources.

As such, while you do have rights to your land, NEMA can step in where the exercising of your rights infringes on environmental laws.

Additional Environmental Laws in Kenya

It is hence clear from the above that the Environmental Management and Coordination Act Of 1999 is an important and fundamental piece of legislation that serves to regulate, govern, and manage how we use our natural resources. However, it is not solely responsible for environmental management as there are other important environmental laws that also play a part in ensuring we protect, conserve, and manage our natural resources prudently. These include the Forest Act and the Climate Change Act.

The Forest Act helps to deal with how we manage and conserve our forests, while the Climate Change Act helps to deal with greenhouse gas emissions and the pollutants that are leading to the climate change that we are currently experiencing. These environmental laws thus help to regulate these emissions and other factors that are contributing to climate change.

Other environmental laws include the Water Act, which helps us manage and conserve the quality of our water and ensure that we do not pollute our water resources. Moreover, it ensures that our water resources are protected as part of our environment.

It is hence clear from the above that Kenya has taken huge strides legally to conserve and manage the natural resources that it has been blessed with abundantly, and this has played a huge role in ensuring the prudent management of the natural resources that we currently enjoy and that will be enjoyed by future generations.

Challenges Facing Environmental Conservation

While we have many environmental laws governing the use of natural resources in our country, it’s clear that there are some gaping loopholes that residents have exploited, which have exacerbated climate change. So, what are the challenges Kenya faces as it strives to conserve and manage its natural resources?

Kenya faces several challenges in the implementation of environmental laws, including the following:

The lack of adequate resources to help fund core environmental management activities, such as the National Environmental Management Authority which is tasked and mandated to lead the efforts of conserving and managing our natural resources.
The challenge of a lack of enough personnel in the agencies that are mandated to manage and conserve our environment and our natural resources.
The challenge of corruption where powerful individuals influence or try to influence some officials of these authorities and agencies who then turn a blind eye to cases of environmental pollution and mismanagement, and this serves to impact our environment negatively.
The lack of public support in some areas where the members of some communities are not on board when it comes to conserving and managing our environment. As such, they turn to natural resources to gain economically through illegal activities such as poaching, illegal logging, and other activities that negatively impact the environment in those areas.

However, there have been great successes in Kenya’s bid to conserve and manage its natural resources using environmental laws. To this end, Kenya has played an important role in helping to deal with the global emissions that are leading to climate change, including planting millions of trees, which is being done across most communities, and passing laws that ban illegal logging and poaching.

Kenya has also strived to keep track of all its natural resources, including all the wildlife that we have. Kenya has also played a part in the international front when it comes to environmental management and conservation by signing key protocols and treaties relating to environmental management and conservation, including the Kyoto Protocol and the current Paris Climate Change Agreement, which is key in helping to reduce greenhouse emissions.

Navigate Environmental Laws with Confidence

Are you putting up a development or embarking on a project that may impact the environment? Get in touch with our legal experts and get insights on the environmental laws that will apply to your case as well as mitigation measures that can help you meet the required threshold. Use the form below to book a consultation.

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