Ivanishvili and the export of baobabs to Georgia: how legal it is, and why Kenya disapproves

JAMnews

Tbilisi

Export of baobobs to Georgia

The Committee for Environmental Protection of the Kenyan Parliament has launched an investigation into the export of baobabs to Georgia. Committee chairman Charles Kamuren said the investigation would inform parliament on what law should be passed to protect the trees, according to Kenyan media reports.

“As an executive branch, we will come up with a law to protect the property of Kenyans. We will give instructions to the relevant departments regarding the export of baobabs,” Camuren said.

The baobabs are intended for the dendrological park named after Bidzina Ivanishvili. Last November the export of these trees from Kenya was stopped because they were being “poached”.

Due to the dissatisfaction of locals, the Kenyan government banned the export of baobabs to Georgia, but in March 2023 this ban was lifted.

According to Kenyan media reports, baobab trees in two villages in the Kilifi districts, Tezo and Majaoni, were uprooted and sent to an arboretum in Georgia. The inhabitants of the villages of Kilifi sold trees in the range of 800-2400 dollars.

Gertrude Mbayu, Kilifi Women’s Representative in the National Assembly of Kenya, says it’s important to go to Georgia and find out why an investor wants to export trees.

The uprooting of trees caused outrage in the Kenyan public and press. In this regard, materials were also published in international media. The uprooting of baobabs has been called “bio-piracy” by environmental activists.

On October 24, The Guardian wrote about Kenyan farmers selling baobabs located on their territory to a group led by Georgian Giorgi Gvasalia.

Kilifi MP Owen Bahia, who authorized the export of baobabs, said there is no law preventing villagers from uprooting and selling the trees because they are neither native nor endangered.

“The baobab is nowhere classified as an endangered species. I convinced senior forestry officials and the chairman of the cabinet to allow the export of eight baobabs,” Owen Baya said.

Environmental Protection Committee spokeswoman Betty Kache sees the situation differently.

According to her, the economic and social value of the trees was neglected in exports. She says that baobabs have a traditional meaning for the Mijikenda people and their export is not allowed.

“The National Environmental Protection Agency withdrew the export license last year, but it has now been re-approved. We want to know why? asks Kache.

“They paid our people 100,000 Kenyan shillings (about $800), although they are selling in Georgia for 3.5 million Kenyan shillings, and therefore we want to visit this country and ask for compensation,” Gertrude Mbeyu says.

Alleged corruption and due process violations are being discussed in the Kenyan Assembly, and the Kenyan Parliament is set to investigate.

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Former Georgian Prime Minister and billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili built a huge dendrological park on the Black Sea coast in western Georgia in 2020.

The park is open to visitors and leaves many in awe with its giant trees and exotic animals.

However, behind these pink flamingos and bamboo alleys, a much more important problem is hidden — the process of building a dendrological park once again showed what is already clear to many: there are those in Georgia who cannot be denied anything by any state structure.

In 2016, when the media first reported that a tree was floating in the Black Sea, many did not believe the story. But later, a giant tree floating on the sea became an integral part of the landscape of the Black Sea coast of Georgia.

For four years the most powerful and wealthy man in the country often traveled to Georgian villages to select a tree, which was then transported to his residence, where a dendrological park was being built.

NGOs noted that the process was not legally transparent — questionable bidding, unclear procedures for issuing permits, and the involvement of the entire state apparatus and budgetary funds in the process of transporting trees.