Press release: Kenyan communities speak out on abuses in the forest sector during COVID-19

As winter arrives in Kenya, and temperatures plummet in the highlands where traditional forest peoples live, COVID-19 is surging across the country. But rather than being able to shelter safely in their homes, these communities are being evicted, and their homes and farms destroyed by their own government.

In the Mau Forest, over 300 Ogiek homes have been demolished so far, and fences, farms and livestock have been destroyed. Children and other vulnerable community members have been left homeless during the pandemic. In Embobut Forest in the Cherangany Hills, the Kenya Forest Service has burned 28 homes belonging to extremely poor Sengwer, along with their blankets, utensils and other essential belongings.

In both cases, the government is erroneously using the forest conservation to justify the evictions. We know that the Mau is the largest closed canopy forest in Kenya and an important watershed, and the government has repeatedly claimed that preserving this ecosystem takes priority over land claims of the Ogiek. We dispute that. We believe honouring land rights is the foundation for conserving forests sustainably, and rightly the path which so many modern governments now take and Global conservation organisations agree.

We are not alone in this view. The African Court of Human and Peoples’ Rights declared in its May 2017 judgment that the Ogiek were not responsible for the depletion of the Mau Forest, and its conservation could not be used to justify their eviction, or the denial of their rights to practice their traditional livelihoods.The Court also ruled that the Mau Complex was indeed the ancestral land of the Ogiek and to which they therefore hold rights. It asked the Ogiek and the Government of Kenya to put forward proposals for working with this reality. The Ogiek submitted a step by step plan of action respecting and protecting their land as owner-conservators, with conservation conditions, and a declaration of most of their lands as protected Community Forests. They outlined how they would work with the Kenya Forest Service to zone and manage the forest well. But three years on, the Government has failed to make detailed submissions, causing the African Court hearing to be postponed until September 2020.

Likewise, the Sengwer’s traditional knowledge system – now captured in written bylaws – long served to conserve their forest home. This forest culture which still, like the Ogiek, holds intact forest sacrosanct even as lifestyles have been undermined by decades of government policy, including forced evictions. This has left the forests vulnerable to illegal logging, poaching and encroachment by outsiders. The Sengwer are also pursuing justice in the courts, although they have appealed time and again to enter a practical ‘win-win’ partnership with Kenya Forest Service as accountable on-site guardians. Donors have stood by time and again to help but cannot fund projects where human rights including land rights are denied.

Many of us who are not forest peoples but pastoralists and settled farmers are also suffering the brunt of an administration which miscalculates the tolerance of modern rural communities to unsound strategies and brutality, including by armed forest guards. Communities dispute continued state claims to land they know they traditionally own.  We also note the number of new public forests proudly declared by Kenya Forest Service, including 70 in 2017 alone. We wonder which of our fellow communities have lost their natural forests needlessly, and the chance to prove they too can protect and conserve.

As citizens we deplore the lawlessness. It is unlawful for government to evict people without proper notice and in cold seasons, even “in the name of conservation”. We believed government would honour its additional pledge in May 2020 to not evict people during COVID-19.

It is also unlawful to deny Constitutional declaration that the ancestral lands and forests lawfully used by communities are community land. Legal routes for recognition of our ancestral lands or transfer from Public to Community Lands are being curtailed by amendment. The Community Land Law of 2016 binds us to protect our forests and other resources, but which we cannot easily do for as long as government goes slow on surveying and titling our lands. The Forest Law of 2016 provided for Community Forests – but now draft policy implies these will be only for new plantations which communities are advised to develop. First, we need assurance that our existing natural forests and woodlands will not be taken from us.

Kenyans may question if communities can really protect natural forests. We know we can. We also have the evidence of so many brother and sister communities on all continents doing so as now recognised owners of 448 million hectares by 2017. Many Community Forests are even now designated as Forest Parks and Reserves of national importance. Scientific studies testify to their success. In 2019, NASA satellite imagery showed that the only major areas not burned in the raging fires in the Brazilian Amazon in mid 2019 were the millions of hectares, including protected parks owned by forest peoples. Community owned forests have also been the flagship of expanding natural forest protection in Namibia, The Gambia, Tanzania for some time, now evolving in Liberia and DRC.

Specifically, we, the Community Land Action Network (CLAN), ask that the government of Kenya:

1. Stop evicting traditional forest peoples, listen to the sacrifices they are uniquely willing and able to make to save their forests for themselves and all Kenyans; agree a practical and fair path forward with each community;
2. Honour the protection due to still-untitled community lands throughout the country by ceasing to ‘grab’ and turn our woodlands and forests into Public Forests; invest instead in helping us declare and manage these as Protected Community Forests on our own community lands;
3. Respond in the spirit of devolution and fairness to requests to return County Forests and Wildlife Reserves to the customary communities from whom they were taken; and
4. Recognize that the old strategies of granting access, use rights and benefits is meaningless for as long as our forests are not recognized as our own.
5. Uphold the rule of law.

 - Community Land Action Now: a network of rural community leaders in Kenya

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