Cape Town — Kenyan lawyers say the government has a case to answer over the recent decision to overturn a six-year ban on logging in the country's vulnerable forest areas.

This follows an outcry by activists and conservationists in July, when President William Ruto announced the lifting of the ban, in a move that he said will create more jobs. Logging of forested areas began soon after the announcement.

The ban, introduced in 2018, and announced by Ruto when he was the deputy president, was designed to support water catchment areas. He said at the time that "the ban was necessitated by destruction of forests and key water catchment areas in the country and an acute water crisis that has occasioned low water levels in rivers and streams".

Kenya has for many years experienced significant droughts. This has lead to the loss of livelihoods due to livestock deaths and the need for food aid to affected communities. The climate crisis has significantly added to extreme weather not only in Kenya but its neighbours in the Horn of Africa such as Somalia, and Ethiopia.

According to Citizen TV Kenya, Justice Oscar Ongote of Kenya's Environment and Land Courts ordered logging and farming activities to stop until the case can be heard.

The Kenya Law Society said in its petition that the government is "endangering the delicate balance of nature, promoting deforestation and threatening the lives of communities that rely on the forests for their sustenance".

Forests are an integral part of the water cycle by releasing substance that promote rain, allowing rainfall to filter into the ground by the spaces created by their root systems, providing cooling that reduces the evaporation of water, increasing the diversity of species in the area and providing food, shelter, building materials and livelihoods to indigenous communities.

Retaining existing forests become even more urgent as global temperatures spike and large swatches of forest continue to be destroyed by wild fires spurred on by less rain and higher temperatures. The United Nations has consistently highlighted that indigenous peoples are the best protectors of forests as their livelihoods are based on the sustainable use of forest resources while ensuring that that they are available for future generations.