- Long-running evictions of Indigenous Ogiek communities from Kenya’s Mau Forest, whom the government blames for deforestation, haven’t led to any letup in rates of forest loss, satellite data show.
- A human rights court ruling in 2017 recognized the Ogiek as ancestral owners of the Mau Forest and ordered the Kenyan government to compensate them, but it’s done little since then.
- Preliminary satellite data and imagery for 2024 indicate the Mau Forest will suffer extensive losses this year, even after the government evicted more than 700 Ogiek in November 2023.
- The country’s chief conservator of forests has cast doubt on the findings of increased deforestation, while a top official responsible for minorities and marginalized peoples says forest communities can be destructive.
In a landmark ruling in May 2017, the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights affirmed the Indigenous Ogiek’s status as ancestral owners of the Mau Forest in Kenya and ordered the government to compensate the group for both material and moral losses, grant them collective title to their ancestral land, and reform policy and legislation denying Indigenous peoples their rights. On Nov. 12 this year, seven and a half years since that ruling, the Tanzania-based court gave Kenya three months to report back on measures it has taken to comply.
There’s been only limited evidence of compliance since the ruling — the forest service allowed some Ogiek access to areas of the forest and operated joint patrols in portions of the forest complex in Nakuru county in 2018, for instance. At the same time, however, Kenyan authorities conducted several rounds of evictions of Ogiek and other communities from the forest, most recently in November 2023, in Narok county. In that incident, Kenya Forest Service rangers evicted more than 700 Ogiek from their homes in Sasimwani, in the Maasai Mau portion of this cluster of forests, and destroyed or damaged their property.
The 2,700-square-kilometer (1,040-square-mile) Mau Forest Complex is a vital ecosystem, a landscape vital to sustaining many rivers and lakes that support agriculture and forestry far beyond its boundaries. The forest is also an important biodiversity hotspot, supporting a variety of rare and threatened animals, including elephants (Loxodonta africana), mountain bongos (Tragelaphus eurycerus) and African golden cats (Caracal aurata).
But from 1984 to 2020, Mau lost roughly 25% of its tree cover. Deforestation slowed dramatically in 2021 and 2022, according to satellite data from Global Forest Watch (GFW), but accelerated again in 2023. Preliminary GFW data and imagery for 2024 indicate the Mau Forest will suffer extensive losses again this year. Alex Lemarkoko, Kenya’s chief conservator of forests, told Mongabay that the Kenya Forest Service has carried out extensive restoration efforts and increased security in recent years.
“There is a need for more ground-truthing because we have controlled a lot of activities in Mau Forest that often leads to degradation,” he told Mongabay. “There have been a lot of rains this year and no fire incidents have been reported — cases which often claim huge forest cover [loss] whenever they are experienced. We have also controlled grazing in Mau.”
He said that over the past two years, the forest service has evicted encroachers — the majority of them non-Ogiek in search of land — from 3 km2 (12 mi2) in the forest reserve. “Forest crimes have drastically reduced,” Lemarkoko said. “We have enhanced staff capacity over the period and engaged communities living near the forests to boost surveillance.”
But satellite imagery shows forest loss occurred this year, concentrated in the northern part of the complex, in the forest reserves of Northern Tinderet, Tinderet and Mount Londiani, as well as in the Olpusimoru Forest Reserve in the southern Mau.
Daniel Kobei, program director for the Ogiek Peoples’ Development Program, which works to defend the Indigenous community’s rights, said evicting Indigenous people from the forest may have contributed to the continuing losses.
“They blamed the Ogiek for what they termed as destruction of forests, but when the Ogiek communities were evicted in Sasimwani, forest crimes increased,” Kobei said. “The community living around the forest might have played a role in preventing these crimes.”
Reacting to the latest orders from the African human rights court, he said that despite favorable judgments in 2017 and again in 2022 — when the court ordered Kenya to recognize and protect the Ogiek’s rights of occupation and use of the forest, and ruled that it had seen no evidence the Ogiek were responsible for damaging it — little has been done for Ogiek communities.
“Many Ogiek community members went to Arusha [where the court is headquartered] in hopes that the government will finally respond, only to requests for three more months. It was a waste of time and resources,” Kobei said.
He said the Ogiek continue to suffer the denial of their rights, including eviction. “It is like a psychological torture where some communities are losing trust [in] the process. They are frustrated with the delays by the government that seems to be happy at the slow pace.”
The head of Kenya’s Minorities and Marginalised Affairs Unit, Josphat Lowoi, acknowledged the ongoing deforestation in the Mau Forest, but also noted that conservation efforts need time to produce results. “Restoration takes time to reflect. Tree forest canopy takes time to establish and results of the efforts being put in now will [be] reflect[ed] much later,” he said.
Lowoi said that while communities living near forests can play a crucial role in their conservation, they can also be a gateway to destruction.
“These communities — not only the Ogiek — act as a buffer and they have the power to prevent forest degradation by not allowing illegal loggers and charcoal burners to get into the forests. In most cases, they are guardians of these forests,” he told Mongabay. “On the other hand, communities living near the forests can collude with the same people to undertake criminal activities within the forests.”
Lowoi said balancing the rights of Indigenous communities living in forests and conservation is a delicate matter, and the government is studying how to implement the human rights court’s judgment.
“We are currently looking at what is implementable and what the government should do. We are considering having lands near gazetted forests to be issued a community title instead of individual titles. This will minimize illegal activities and leasing of individual parcels to some people who end up clearing the sections of the forests to have more land to cultivate,” Lowoi said.
Read more here: Western Kenya’s most important water-capturing forest is disappearing, satellites show.
Watch this 2022 video which explores the complex dynamics of settlers coming to the Mau Forest complex in search of land.
Banner image : Esther Norparua and her daughters were among more than 700 Ogiek evicted from Mau Forest in 2023. Image by Anthony Langat for Mongabay.
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