THE UNIVERSITY OF LEIPZIG

to illustrate the current dilemmas that characterize Kenya’s forestry resources management. It
is worth noting that conflicts between traditional norms, behaviours, perceptions, values and
state thinking regarding forest biodiversity conservation are very discernible in Kakamega.
There is need to mitigate the state-society thinking in order to have a successful forest
resource conservation regime.
The country is in a process of revising all its legal frameworks relating to biodiversity, as a
measure to arrest the situation by 2010. In the interest of this study, we ask; with only three
years to 2010, to what extent have such efforts been implemented? Will the revised acts work
to undo the existing mismatch in the current legal frameworks governing biodiversity in the
country? We ought to mention that any efforts to reverse further degradation of biodiversity
in Kenya, should be able to reconcile community social and economic needs through
development of holistic and well reaching institutions for ensuring sustainable land use
activities.
In Kenya, most of the legal rules were formulated on the basis of neo-classical models which
sometimes fail to recognize the crucial actors during the framing of rights at different levels.
Some times the rights’ holders may not be the best people to protect the resources which they
have been entrusted to protect. 7 Currently there are efforts geared towards enlisting local
community involvement in appreciation of biodiversity in Kenya, but efforts in studying the
institutionalisation of community perceptions regarding biodiversity are still limited. There
exist complex local institutions which are unsupported by existing formal institutional
frameworks. These institutional frameworks sometimes fail to reconcile community attributes
related to biodiversity. The transfer of authority over common resources from the realm of
communal rules to individuals and states created conditions for overexploitation due to the
sweeping aside of traditional structures that regulate use. 8
The 1992 Rio conference established a new agenda regarding the control of biological
resources. It has attracted cooperation among different states in an attempt to prevent further
destruction. This has become a subject of common concern over the decades. Management of
biodiversity can be accomplished through either in-situ or ex -situ measures. Of the two, insitu
conservation remains most common. However, one important component of in-situ
management is the biocultural knowledge, comprising of traditional knowledge which resides
in traditional groups. This traditional knowledge used by the local and indigenous
communities to preserve and conserve biological resources, is less utilized and less
documented. 9 The purview of biodiversity within a broader context has yielded the need to
reformulate institutions and systems that can take into account multiple users and actors. it
was in the interest of this study to investigate how such multiple interests and multiple actors
7 Pimbert, M and J. Pretty. 1995. Parks, People and Professionals: Putting Participation into Protected Area
Management. UNRISD Discussion Paper No. 57. Geneva: UNRISED.
8 Scott, W. R. 1995. Institutions and Organizations. Thousand Oaks: Sage.
9 GOK. 2001. The East African Cross border Biodiversity. Nairobi: Government Printer.
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