The Samburu County Sustainable Forest Management and Tree Growing Act, No. 5 of 2022.

This Act, divided into four Parts and consisting of 39 sections, in application of the Constitutional provisions, aims at: defining a framework for the implementation of forestry and tree growing functions at the County level; strengthening mechanisms for public participation of communities, land owners, indigenous and marginalised persons in sustainable forest management; increasing the mainstreaming of human rights approach through the recognition of gender, persons living with disabilities, minorities, youth and the elderly rights in forest management activities; increasing climate change mitigation interventions and actions.
The Act focuses on: integration of climate change Actions into decision making; community land; community forest; establishment and maintenance of recreational parks; green zone; management of private forests; public forest; administrative functions and powers of the County executive committee members, including: promotion of forestry education and training programmes; development of programmes for recreational and ceremonial use of forests; management of water catchment areas in relation to soil and water conservation and other environmental services; provision of incentives for the sustainable utilisation of wood and non-wood forest products; implementation of measures for governing inter-county trade in forest products.
Further matters covered by this Act include: forest community organisations and registration of these organisations; establishment and management of County forests on public land, private land and community land; right to use forest resources and benefits for the community, including: management of use of non-wood forest products; controlling collection of medicinal herbs; regulating grass harvesting and grazing; licensing harvesting of timber; protection of forest resources. The Act also defines the following purposes for the management of indigenous forests: conservation of water resources and biodiversity; riparian and shoreline protection; protection of habitat for wildlife in terrestrial forests.
The Act provides measures for: strengthening the sustainable management of plantation forests; approving forest management agreements for biodiversity conservation; giving governmental consent for quarrying in public County forests and conditions for prohibiting mining activities, including: presence of threatened or endangered species; lack of an environmental impact assessment; presence of important catchment area in the forest. Final provisions of the Act concern: preparation of forest management plans; mapping of all County public land, in order to establish County forests and determine the level of land degradation and soil erosion; establishing the requirements for rehabilitating the land and degraded areas; certificate of origin for movement of forest products; use and application of customary rights; tax and fiscal incentives; dispute settlement.