Kenya’s forest laws are among the most stringent in the world. They protect our forests and ensure that sustainable forest management practices are followed across the country. This means that consumers can be confident that the forest and wood products they buy from and within Kenya were obtained legally and harvested under a system of sustainable forest management. Thus, various legislative forest reforms have taken place over the years. These reforms culminated to the repeal of the Forest Act 385, the enactment of the Forest Act, 2005 which established the Kenya Forest Service as a Semi-autonomous State Corporation in 2007 and the now newly formed Forest Conservation and Management Act, 2016 (FCM Act, 2016).

The main purpose of the new Act is to give effect to Article 69 of the Constitution of Kenya with regard to forest resources; provides for the development and sustainable management, including conservation and rational utilization of all forest resources for the socio-economic development of the country and other connected purposes.

Although Kenya Forest Service administers the FCM Act 2016, the Act requires County Governments to adopt and implement policies in adherence to the act as provided under Section 21 which requires them to prepare annual report for the Service on forestry activities. The Act also requires the Kenya Forest Service Board to prepare forest status report for the Cabinet Secretary once every two years and forest resource assessment report (FRA) once every year. It gives responsibility to the Cabinet Secretary to develop National Forest Policy in consultation with County Governments and relevant stakeholders.