Kenya says makes climate effort before Copenhagen

By Katie Collins

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenya said on Wednesday it would work to restore tree cover and explore renewable energy options as its contribution to combating climate change ahead of next month's environmental summit in Copenhagen.

Part of the effort will include a plan to save the Mau forest, one of the few remaining in the east African country, Prime Minister Raila Odinga said.

"In Kenya, we are not waiting for Copenhagen for help," he told a conference.

He said forests had covered 12 percent of Kenya 40 years ago, but the figure had been slashed to 1.7 percent.

"Through acts of unbridled greed, irresponsibility, mismanagement of public resources and a severe lack of civic responsibility, we lost most of our forest and our water towers to human encroachment and illegal logging," he said.

"We have embarked on ambitious reforestation programs," he said, adding that, by law, tea plantations and other farms must now plant trees on at least 10 percent of their land.

A major source of controversy in Kenya in recent weeks has been the planned relocation of some 20,000 families from homes in the Mau Forest Complex, the country's biggest closed-canopy forest and a vital water catchment area.

Their 14-day eviction notices expired on Tuesday.