APPEAL FOR FUNDING

The House Committee on land resources says it's high time the government reviewed funding for environmental conservation.

Committee member Silas Ruteere regretted that whereas the country's high population growth rate exerts a lot of pressure for exploitation of natural resources, funding for environmental programmes have been minimal.

Ruteere says bad governance has contributed to the degradation of Kenya's main catchment area the Mau forest.

He was speaking on Friday during the National Environment Trust fund meeting in Nairobi where the government is seeking to engage the private sector in sustenance of the environment.

The Ministry of environment says the 38 million people in Kenya are now competing for a scare resource like land with statistics indicating that in 2005, the land available to each Kenyan was only 1.7 hectares.