Ministry of Environment has cancelled any movement of baobabs hours after president William Ruto ordered a probe into the mass uprooting of the trees in Kilifi County.
Cabinet Secretary for Environment Soipan Tuya on Monday evening instructed Kenya Forestry Service to cancel the movement of the trees pending assessment of the case.
Tuya said she had agreed with the Transport ministry not to allow any movement of until agreements between parties are regularized.
"Administrative action will be taken against government officers within the ministry's agencies that did not follow due process," she told a press conference.
A private company and communities in Kilifi are said to have entered into an agreement to uproot eight trees for export from the Tezo location in the county to Georgia.
The company applied for an access permit from National Environment Management Authority on October 28.
However, the company is alleged to have gone ahead and started uprooting the trees irregularly even before NEMA had given the license.
Ruto on Monday morning ordered the Ministry of Environment and Forestry to scrutinize the ongoing uprooting of Baobab trees in Kilifi county.
The Head of State, through a communiqué on Monday, instructed that the process should be within the dictates of the Nagoya protocol, a multilateral treaty which aims to develop national strategies for the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity.
"I have instructed the Ministry of Environment and Forestry to look into the ongoing uprooting of Baobab trees in Kilifi County to ensure that it sits within the Convention on Biodiversity and the Nagoya Protocol," wrote Ruto on Twitter.
He further added that the exercise should be in tandem with the government's plan of planting 15 billion trees to help combat the effects of climate change.
The Nagoya Protocol, formally known as the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), came into force on October 12, 2014, and has been signed by over 50 countries including the UK and the EU.
The protocol applies to genetic resources, traditional knowledge associated with genetic resources; and the benefits arising from the utilization of such genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge.
Environmentalist Paula Kahumbu has raised alarm over the ongoing harvesting of the trees in the area.
"Someone is allegedly digging up and selling ancient giant baobab trees in Kilifi county. Please can you look into this and stop the destruction of our trees," she said.
