Kenya

FPP has been supporting partners in Kenya since 2011, initially at the invitation of the Ogiek of Mt Elgon in response to them being evicted from their land. With these partners and others, our work focuses on customary tenure and land rights, legal support, insisting on responsible finance and opposing exclusionary conservation.

It is not a coincidence that the last remaining indigenous forests in Kenya are where forest ancestral peoples have been living since time immemorial. Their ways of life have depended on being sustained by and sustaining their forests. However, almost all forest people’s lands have been appropriated by the state under the guise of a form of conservation that has often led to the destruction and exploitation of indigenous forests by Kenya Forest Service.  

FPP has been working in Kenya since 2011, initially at the invitation of the Ogiek of Mt Elgon’s CBO, Chepkitale Indigenous Peoples Development Project (CIPDP). FPP and IUCN ESARO worked in partnership at Mt Elgon to conduct the world’ first Whakatane Assessment to try and address the fact the Ogiek had been evicted from their lands. Despite this, the Elgon Ogiek still had to pursue court cases to halt evictions and to secure their community lands.  In September 2022, the Ogiek of Mt Elgon won a 14-year court case against their eviction. The Elgon Ogiek provide a powerful example of how securing the community tenure rights of forest peoples can create a rapid, rights-based route to the effective and sustainable conservation of their forests.

In 2011, FPP also started working with the Sengwer of Embobut Forest in the Cherangany Hills. The Sengwer have suffered violent evictions by the State. In 2013 the Sengwer successfully secured a World Bank Inspection Panel that found the Bank’s NRMP project had broken the its own safeguard policies. In 2018, the Sengwer also successfully halted a large EU WaTER tower project that was in effect funding the dispossession of the Sengwer, but only once one of the Sengwer had been killed by KFS while pursuing his daily peaceful livelihood. FPP works with the Sengwer of Embobut CBO (SoE CBO) based on the ground in Embobut, the Sengwer Indigenous Peoples Program (SIPP) mostly focused on Kapolet, and the Sengwer Indigenous Peoples Trust (SICT) which covers the wider Sengwer area.

Since 2012, FPP and CIPDP have worked together to support the Aweer of Lamu County on the cost near the Somali border. The Aweer have been successively evicted from their ancestral lands by fortress conservation, often under the pretext of state security. In 2016 they lost the major part of their remaining lands to the Boni-Lungi forest reserve. FPP and CIPDP are supporting the Aweer as they appeal to Parliament to revoke this gazettement, as well as working with the Aweer and their close and severely marginalised neighbours – the Sanye – through their organisation the Lamu Minority People and Development Organisation (LMPD)

Since 2020, FPP has also been working with the Ogiek of the Mau Forest’s CBO Ogiek Peoples Development Program (OPDP). Despite the 2017 landmark judgement by the African Court of Human and Peoples’ Rights in favour of the Mau Ogiek, the Ogiek of Mau are still excluded from their ancestral forest lands. FPP is supporting them to seek the implementation of this ruling, and to pursue litigation to halt evictions. 

The Elgon Ogiek have a very effective community based organisation in CIPDP (Chepkitale Indigenous Peoples Development Project) which has developed links and work with other forest and pastoralist communities in Kenya, who together have created the very effective Community Land Action Now! (CLAN) network. Since 2022 FPP has also been supporting another initiative of the Elgon Ogiek, which is the East Africa women-led Indigenous Peoples Assembly network that spans 13 communities – 7 from Kenya, 3 from Tanzania, 2 from Uganda and one from Eastern DRC.

Main activities and current work

FPP has been supporting these forest peoples:

• To map their lands, develop their sustainability bylaws and land use plans
• To engage in county, national and international policy and advocacy
• To pursue litigation to halt community evictions and to secure their rights
• To demonstrate that they are the best conservers of their forests and biodiversity if their collective rights to their lands are recognised, rather than being repeatedly evicted.  

To help our partners do this, FPP works to

• Support community monitoring of biodiversity and forest cover at Mount Elgon
• Support mapping, bylaws, and land use planning
• Support negotiations with county, national and international actors
• Support community to community support e.g. through the East Africa women-led Indigenous Peoples Assemblies
• Support the Aweer and Sanye as they seek the return of their ancestral lands
• Support the Sengwer of Embobut and Ogiek of Mau in the face of evictions

Key wins for our partners

• In September 2022, the Ogiek of Mt Elgon won a 14-year court case against their eviction.
• The Elgon Ogiek provide a powerful example of how securing the community tenure rights of forest peoples can create a rapid, rights-based route to the effective and sustainable conservation of their forests
• The work of the East Africa women-led Indigenous Peoples Assembly network champions women’s central role in the struggle for community lands
• The Sengwer successfully secured a World Bank Inspection Panel that found the Bank’s NRMP project had broken the its own safeguard policies.
• The Sengwer also successfully halted a large EU WaTER tower project that was in effect funding the dispossession of the Sengwer, but only once one of the Sengwer had been killed by KFS while pursuing his daily peaceful livelihood.