THE UNIVERSITY OF LEIPZIG

4 Biodiversity, local decentralisation and the politics of neo-
patrimonialism in Kenya
This chapter examines how sub-nationalist politics that emerged within the post independence
ruling party, the Kenya African National Union (KANU), government marked by high levels
of ethnic heterogeneity and a history of political and economically privileged presidential
cronies, benefited from the large tracks of national biodiversity resources, particularly forest
belts, considerably led to degeneration of the national biodiversity. We also mention how
overgeneralization and over concentration of power in the hands of the ruling president and
his cohorts contributed to this quagmire, characterized by interpersonal interchanges, social
and political relations. In almost all the provinces of this country, a large number of ethnic
minorities carved out a considerable degree of autonomy within each region and at the
community level, while consolidating long-standing practices of inter and ethnic cooperation.
We use the term political patrimonialism to capture the imagery of glaring facets social,
economic and political bootstrap-relations that historically defined a shared political
preference to the plurality of conventional politics and service delivery. Political
patrimonialism encompasses practices linked to illegal operations arising from corruption and
related facets. Such include the sale of government property by government officials for
personal gain. These mosaic-like practices were each abhorred and confronted by strong
hostile external forces from the underprivileged masses, university students and other related
civil society activism. Though a parallel system of decentralization based on regional,
provincial and district local governments was established to delegate powers, it was not far
from what the leadership style at the centre obtained.
4.1 Biodiversity and the politics of neo-patrimonialism in Kenya
Kameri-Mbote in a rather more insightful analysis of natural resource governance, property
rights and biodiversity management in Kenya, points out that legal regimes are sometimes
framed on the basis of neo-classical models which sometimes fail to recognize crucial actors
in the management of natural resources, resulting into framing of rights at wrong levels. 362
This implies that sometimes the rights holders may not be the best people to protect the
resources over which they have interests. This assertion opens the debate regarding neopatrimonial
politics in Kenya. It makes one wonder whether formulation of natural resources
rules in Kenya is linked to political patronage. The current biodiversity crisis in Kenya began
to take its roots at the close of the 1970’s and at the dawning of the 1980’s. It was also
discovered that corrupt government agents were responsible for much of the deforestation, by
illegally selling off biodiversity resources in form of forested land to political patrimonies in
363
the name of industrial developers.
362 Kameri-Mbote, P. 2001. Biodiversity and Property Rights Management in Kenya. Nairobi: ACTS Press.
363 Kanyinga, K 1994. Ethnicity, Patronage and Class in Local Arena: High and low Politics in Kiambu, Kenya
1982-1992. In new Local Level Politics in East Africa, edited by P. Gibson, 87-117. Uppsala: The
Scandinavia Institute of African Studies.
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