Mumma, Albert --- "The Role of Local Communities in Environmental and Natural Resources Management: The Case of Kenya" [2011] ELECD 330; in Paddock, Lee; Qun, Du; Kotzé, J. Louis; Markell, L. David; Markowitz, J. Kenneth; Zaelke, Durwood (eds), "Compliance and Enforcement in Environmental Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011)

Book Title: Compliance and Enforcement in Environmental Law

Editor(s): Paddock, Lee; Qun, Du; Kotzé, J. Louis; Markell, L. David; Markowitz, J. Kenneth; Zaelke, Durwood

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781848448315

Section: Chapter 26

Section Title: The Role of Local Communities in Environmental and Natural Resources Management: The Case of Kenya

Author(s): Mumma, Albert

Number of pages: 20

Extract:

26. The Role of Local Communities in
Environmental and Natural Resources
Management: The Case of Kenya
Albert Mumma*

1. INTRODUCTION

Despite a wealth of laws on environmental and natural resources management,
the degradation of Kenya's environment and natural resource base has continued
unabated. The laws are known to only a few professionals and little action is
taken by government to implement them. Enforcement action tends to be the
exception rather than the rule. The public also continues with its activities with
little regard to the requirements of the law. Enforcement action by non-
governmental organizations is desultory at best and, in any case, is reactive and
poorly contemplated. Even court decisions on issues of key environmental and
natural resources management concerns do not serve to galvanize any concerted
implementation and enforcement effort.
This chapter discusses the role of local communities in environmental and
natural resources management in Kenya. It argues that the lack of sound
management is ascribable to the displacement of community based environmental
and natural resources management and enforcement systems, process and
institutions, and the adoption, instead, of supposedly scientific and technology
based natural resources and environmental management and enforcement
systems, processes and institutions, derived largely from external (largely
western) cultures. This system tends to be resource intensive and depends, for its
success, on the support of a sophisticated infrastructure of administration,
information technology, and human and financial resources. The lack of a
supportive infrastructure for environmental and natural resources management
based on western models has proved ...