Stakeholders in the timber sector are threatening to call a national strike over planned sale of pulpwood materials covering 45,000 hectares by Kenya Forest Service (KFS).
Timber investors, community forest association and elders from Rift Valley and Western Kenya have accused Kenya Forest Service of orchestrating what they termed as a forest grab disguised as pulpwood tender.
The uproar follows the publication of tender no KFS/DISP/27/2025 titled sale of Pulpwood forest material inviting bids to harvest 45,000 hectares of plantation forest in South Rift and western Kenya over an 18 year period.
The group claim the tender is illegal, opaque and designed to benefit one individual they say are KFS insiders, at the expense of hundreds of licensed saw millers and forest adjacent communities.
Speaking at Eldama Ravine after holding a daylong meeting the stakeholders led by Ronald Kipramoi the secretary of the Rift valley Timber Investors Association said the tender was in contempt of a 2023 court order that limits commercial harvesting to 5,000 hectares per year.
According to the timber stakeholders the pulpwood tender covers nearly a third of Kenya’s plantation forest estate estimated at 135,000 hectares.
The materials they say are 18 to 25 years old mature for saw timber not pulp but are being sold under the cheap pulpwood classification.
Elders from Lembus and Ogiek communities the tender resurrects painful memories of Colonial era concessions that displaced indigenous populations and stripped them of their ancestral forests.
Chairman Lembus council of elders Joseph Leboo said the plan mirrors the exploitative systems used by the British colonial government in the 1940s and 1950s.
Leboo said the community petitioned the Truth, justice and reconciliation commission over Colonial forest exploitation but never received redress.
The saw millers drawn from various counties including Uasin Gishu and Kakamega accused bureaucrats in Nairobi of misleading the president.
Joseph Koech another saw miller from Londiani in Kericho county who he appealed directly to the president to intervene.
The uproar comes barely a few days after President William Ruto during a development tour of Nakuru county announced plans to revive the timber industry by reopening controlled harvesting zones.
Timber Investors, community Forest association and elders from Rift valley and western Kenya.
