President Ruto orders probe into uprooting of Baobab trees in Kilifi

The Head of State, through a communiqué on Monday, instructed that the process should be within the dictates of the Nagoya protocol, a multilateral treaty which aims to develop national strategies for the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity.

"I have instructed the Ministry of Environment and Forestry to look into the ongoing uprooting of Baobab trees in Kilifi County to ensure that it sits within the Convention on Biodiversity and the Nagoya Protocol,' wrote Ruto on Twitter.

He further added that the exercise should be in tandem with the government's plan of planting 15 billion trees to help combat the effects of climate change.

"There must be adequate authorisation and an equitable benefit sharing formula for Kenyans. Further, the exercise must be in line with the Government’s agenda of planting 15 billion trees in the next 10 years," he added.

The Nagoya Protocol, formally known as the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), came into force on October 12, 2014, and has been signed by over 50 countries including the UK and the EU. 

The protocol applies to genetic resources, traditional knowledge associated with genetic resources; and the benefits arising from the utilization of such genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge. 

It provides a transparent legal framework for the effective implementation of one of the objectives of the CBD: the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising out of the utilization of genetic resources. 

It also covers research disciplines indirectly linked to biosciences, such as earth or climate science (GR in drill cores, water, or soil samples) and archaeological sciences (archaeobotany, archaeozoology, and archaeology).

It does not apply to genetic resources covered by specialised access and benefit-sharing agreements such as the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, or the framework for pandemic preparedness of the World Health Organisation (WHO).