Environmentalists in Kenya and Africa, want to push for compensation from developed countries that are the major polluters. Through carbon trading, Kenya could claim a significant portion of the $126 billion carbon market through planting of trees and conserving of the environment. As Kenya’s Nobel laureate Professor Wangari Maathai puts it, in today’s world, conserving the environment is not all about self preservation but also about earning money from countries that contribute significantly to climate change. Estimates show by exploiting opportunities in the carbon market through planting of trees, Kenya alone could earn a whopping Sh30 billion annually while the continent could rake in about Sh200 billion annually. The Sh30 billion is equivalent to the money the Government is borrowing from donors to preserve and conserve Mau Forest. Although the country’s forest cover has largely been depleted from more than 10 per cent in the 1960s to about 1.7 per cent today, preserving the remaining cover could amount to a gold mine.
