For Gáldu by Shadrack Kavilu

As the clock continues to tick, an indigenous community living in one of the largest indigenous forests in Kenya is holding their breath awaiting a court ruling that could decide whether they will be granted rights to continue living in the Mau forest which is their ancestral land or they will face eviction.

The suit filed by the Ogiek community ten years ago, petitioned the government to implement findings of a taskforce on land rights appointed by the Prime Minister to look into best ways of protecting and conserving the Mau Forest – one of the largest water catchment forests in the region covering about 400,000 hectares and which has suffered huge deforestation as a result of illegal settlement and logging.

The Mau Forest Complex is source of water to several rivers that feed major Lakes in the region including the second largest fresh water lake; Lake Victoria, Lake Nakuru and Lake Naivasha. But the recent encroachment by other communities has left a trail of destruction that has seen environmental activists and political leaders calling for the eviction of all settlers in the forest.

Scientists have argued that several rivers such as the Mara River which straddles across the famous Masaai Mara and Serengeti game reserves could dry up together with lakes that get their water from the forest.

Following the revelation by the scientists, the government has embarked on an eviction programme that would see all people evicted from the forest, a move that could jeopardize the livelihoods of the Ogiek community who have lived in the forest for years.

But as the community awaits the ruling, environmental activists and politicians have intensified calls to have the government evict all settlers in the forest arguing that the wanton destruction of the forest through logging and charcoal burning could have negative ramification on the ecosystem that is source of livelihood to more than 2 million people living along rivers flowing from the forest.

Though the move has been met with stiff opposition from the political divide, with some politicians arguing that the government should fully compensate those evicted, environmental activists are calling on the government to carry on with the eviction exercise with or without compensation since the forest is of national importance.

In the suit, the community wants the government to implement part of the findings that recommend they be settled in the forest but outside the critical water catchment areas, but due to the wanton destruction of the forest the government has since started evicting all Mau settlers in a bid aimed at restoring the regions largest indigenous forest.

Also in the suit, the community wants the government to consider the National Land Policy which recognises them as a minority group inhabiting in the Mau forest which should be protected like any other Indigenous community.

Over the years the community has filed several cases seeking to be granted land rights that they claim were deprived of by the colonial government. Recently they filed a suit blocking the government from resettling other communities in the forest but they lost the case opening up the forest to rich politicians who then dished out huge chunk of land to politically connected individuals.

Late last year in the height of political and environmental activists campaign to have all evicted from the Mau Forest Complex, a high court judge directed the Attorney General to respond to the suit latest by March this year failure to which a judgment will be entered in favour of the Indigenous community.

Kimaiyo Towett, the community spokesman, says the community has been living in the forest even before the colonial rule but since the arrival of the British colony the community has been alienated and marginalized.

“Mau Forest Complex was declared a forest reserve by the colonial government and between 1919 and 1939 when land was set aside for Africans as Trust land the community was not allocated any chunk,” laments Towett.

The community has expressed fears that they could lose their ancestral land which is endowed with indigenous trees which are rich in traditional herbal medicine and their cultural identity.

He adds that evicting them from the forest which is their ancestral land, would make it difficult for them to observe their cultural practices and interfere with their way of life since most of them are hunters and gatherers.

“Our cultural practices and our natural social settings would really be affected and we appeal to the government to let us remain in the forest since our livelihoods depends on the forest,” he observed.

However, Kenya’s Prime Minister, Raila Odinga, has maintained that the government would continue with the eviction and called on politicians to stop politicking over the Mau forest. “We will carry on with the exercise but we will compensate those with legal title deeds,” he affirmed.

The Ogiek community is one of Kenya’s remaining hunter and gatherers community which has inhabited the Mau forest since time immemorial and over the years it has petitioned the government to grant them land rights to live in the forest which is their ancestral land.

The community has lived in the forest for years, but over the past few years other communities have encroached the forest leaving a trail of destruction through logging and burning of charcoal for commercial purposes, a move that has elicited strong condemnation by environmental activist