Kenya evicts thousands of forest squatters in attempt to save Rift valley

Tourism, tea and energy industries threatened after a quarter of huge Mau forest destroyed in 20 years

By Xan Rice in Nairobi, www.guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 18 November 2009 22.48 GMT Several thousand people who had settled illegally in Kenya’s most important forest have left their homes at the beginning of an eviction plan designed to end rampant environmental degradation in the Rift valley. Security officers this week entered the Mau forest, the country’s largest water catchment basin, in the first stage of a government operation that will eventually see up to 30,000 families leave. More than a quarter of the 400,000-hectare forest has been lost because of human activity over the past 20 years, threatening Kenya’s crucial tourism, tea and energy sectors and the livelihoods of millions of people reliant on the Mau ecosystem. “We have no time to waste here,” said Christian Lambrechts, a United Nations environment programme expert seconded to the government’s Mau Secretariat. “The ecological services must be restored.” The dozen or so rivers that originate in the montane forest complex feed the Masai Mara Reserve and Lake Victoria, as well as the lush tea fields of Kericho. But in recent years the river flows have decreased or stopped during the dry season. At Lake Nakuru, Kenya’s most visited national park, wildlife officials were forced to pump in water to supply the animals this summer when all the feeder rivers dried up. A serious drought that has led to water and power shortages across the country was a contributing factor. But human destruction of the once-thick Mau Forest, which has caused its aquifer levels to fall significantly and seen soil erosion increase, played a major part. … Amid warnings that the entire ecosystem in the Rift valley and western Kenya was in danger due to the rapid deforestation, Kenya’s government has made saving the Mau its number one environmental priority. A task force formed by the prime minister, Raila Odinga, last year recommended that all settlers in the forest be removed and that cleared areas be rehabilitated through mass tree planting. Only genuine titleholders – many of the titles in circulation are fictitious – are to be considered for compensation. …