The green city in the sun. That was what our beautiful Nairobi was famously known as. Well, we’re still in the sun (and increasingly so), but the ‘green’ part of the description may soon be hard to justify.
Why is no one worried about the pace at which trees are being destroyed in our city? Driving around Nairobi provides many chilling moments these days. You come round a familiar corner, and suddenly feel a sense of change, of loss, of a hole in the picture. The hole is caused by the trees that some idiot has brainlessly destroyed.
Large swathes of the city are suffering this fate. Usually, senseless behaviour of all types is laid at the feet of public-sector officials. In this case, however, the private sector is also revealing its rapaciousness when allowed to go unchecked.
The city fathers of yore were forward-thinking fellows who understood the value of trees and planted them diligently along all our main roads and avenues. This foresight gave Nairobi much of its beauty and grandeur, more so than its buildings and skyline.
Why are all the trees being brought down? Partly for a good reason: we are building quite a few new roads in many parts of the city, and road reserves are being reclaimed. But do observe: big roads are constructed all over the world, and not always at the cost of pulling the trees down. Environmentally sensitive planning demands that cutting down trees is a last resort – the thing you do when you have exhausted all other possibilities. That is why the beautiful cities of the world have trees along all their major roads and walkways, even when they are surrounded by tarmac or concrete. The road is built around the tree, and the tree is protected by barriers.
Here, we have the opposite knee-jerk reaction. These trees are in the way – chinja! A gang wielding ugly power-saws is immediately assembled to do the deed. Let’s cut the damn trees down first and think later.
We have an even dumber reason for bringing out the power-saws: beautification! It seems obvious to some that trees are ugly, so the many that lined Uhuru Highway have come down simply to be replaced by landscaped shrubs. Recently we had the fiasco of trees being replaced by coloured pebbles. That project lasted all of two months, and the part of the highway that was subjected to this outrage now looks like a wasteland. Who pays for this nonsense, and why do we condone it?
Our property developers and contractors are hardly any better. As they go about their mission of transforming Nairobi into a city of ugly and malformed apartment blocks, they also have another agenda: let’s kill all the trees. Again, this is a failure both of regulation and of imagination. There are rules about how much green space any developer should leave in a site – but these are being flouted everyday. Visit those ugly parts of Kileleshwa and Kilimani that are now just apartment hells – and look at the number of developments that are wall-to-wall, with barely a ‘compound’ to speak of.
Even those who respect the need for green spaces are being absurd in their approach. Rather than respecting the existing trees and building around them as far as possible, their approach is rather cruder: flatten everything first and plant new things later. Learn from the handful of sensible developers and architects who use their imaginations to keep existing ecosystems and species intact. They are the ones who are providing better living spaces, and are able to charge more for it.
This is not an anti-progress stance. I recognise fully the need to expand Nairobi’s transportation and housing infrastructure. I accept without hesitation that some of our ancient trees will inevitably have to go. This is a rapidly growing city that will need to house many more people and move them around. But what we are doing right now is not intelligent. Trees are not just a sentimental attachment: they are fundamental to ecological survival. As individuals go around bedding their own nests, they are destroying the prospects of future generations.
If you doubt what I say, visit Lagos. This vast and teeming city is memorable for one thing: concrete. With hardly a tree in sight, it is hot and unattractive. Nairobi has always been different, but it soon won’t be. While we all get preoccupied with the political machinations around the Mau Forest, Nairobians are missing the tragedy unfolding under their noses.
Trees are a national asset. They are the lungs of the planet, and bring untold environmental benefits. They provide beauty and shade, they create rain, they support bird life. Without those things, this city will be a lesser place for people of all social classes. A system of rewards and penalties is needed urgently. We cannot allow inept officials and money-crazed developers to destroy what is the heritage of every city-dweller.
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{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
Trees too have feelings I guess…you know they’ve waited for long for humans to change their ways – to treat trees better, something which most of us have failed. The trees’ anger is increasing day by day as we continue mistreating the green world. We haven’t faced the full wrath of the trees yet, but when that time comes, tears will be flowing on every Kenyan cheek. So what are we still waiting for – for change or for pain?
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Hi Sunny,
What do you expect when a person in a different career line infringes directly on turf that is not their domain? One may have ideas to share, including paving the whole city with pebbles, fine, but there are procedures to give such proposals, say to urban planners. I think Nairobi and any city for that matter needs to define itself, brand itself and market and sustain itself. If its Green City in the Sun, then live by this Vision.
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Dickie:
No vision at all – just short-term personal gain.
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It’s no wonder the city has become the dry sweltering place it is!
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Sunny, I enjoyed your writings. Good points! Keep it up
Mwai
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True pearls of wisdom. Always a pleasure to read your thoughts.
I think what is lacking is an appreciation for the part aesthetics play in building up the value of the city. This is probably the reason why “beautification” exercises are handled by the city council instead of by professional urban developers and artists.
And I fear that by the time we finally realize the unsustainability of the “Concrete Jungles” we are building, it might become unthinkable to turn back and start afresh
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Richard:
Nothing mankind can create can be more beautiful than nature. It is high time we realized that and worked with nature rather than at her expense.
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Well said Sunny, but we need to go beyond appreciating your comments, on an individual level we have to define what we stand for which will lead to us defining what this city stands for and what this nation stands for as Dickie said. However how many of us who own property will keep city by-laws in mind when we build? It’s not like the apartments in Kile are owned by people from Zamunda right? How many of us obey the city by-laws and traffic laws when we drive, with regard to our places of residence and our employees? Do we need to make an example of the people who break our laws? A public example…
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Phillip:
Absolutely – offenders should be punished heavily and publicly.
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Sunny – in addition to punishing offenders how far are we willing to go as communities to forge a single Kenyan identity? to stop putting money first, to stop treating this county as if it belongs to someone else and all we are here to do is make profit and its up to others to fix this nation?
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