Kenya tribe slowly driven off its ancestral lands

First it was colonists who put the Ogiek on reserves in Mau Forest. After freedom corrupt officials drove them out as they set up farms. Now a reforestation effort has forced them even farther away.

By Robyn Dixon, January 4, 2010 Mau Forest, Kenya – For centuries, the little-known Ogiek people foraged wild honey and used bows and arrows to hunt gazelles in the Mau Forest of Kenya. But recently, for the second time in 16 years, they were driven from their homes and are now living in makeshift bamboo-and-plastic tents at the side of the road in a valley that long ago was part of the forest. Their plight casts a focus on Kenya’s endemic corruption and its potentially catastrophic effect on a small, powerless tribe, and the rest of the nation. The Ogieks were first dispossessed in the 1930s by British colonists, who set aside small forest reserves for them, while taking away most of their ancestral lands. Things got worse, however, after the nation won its independence. In 1993, the tribe, now about 36,000-strong, was forced to the edge of the forest by corrupt businessmen and politicians, who with government complicity, bulldozed trees and planted tea, raking in profits. In Kenya’s biggest rain catchment, rainfall declined sharply. Wetlands and lakes at the other end of the country also began dying, including the Nakuru Lake, famous for its flamingos. In November, the Kenyan government finally acted to save the Mau Forest. The first step: Evict the Ogiek again — this time from their villages near the edge of the forest. According to the Kenyan government, there is no choice in the matter. To save the forest, everyone must move. “If encroachment and unsustainable exploitation of the forest ecosystem continues, it will only be a matter of time before the entire ecosystem is irreversibly damaged with significant socio-economic consequences and ramifications to internal security and conflict,” a Kenyan government report states. It’s one thing, planting new trees. But undoing the decades of damage means untangling corrupt land deals made years ago and declawing one of Kenya’s most powerful political elites, taking back the land parceled out illegally. It means taking on former President Daniel Arap Moi, his family and cronies — some of the biggest beneficiaries of the illicit land deals. Yet it also means more woes for Moi’s victims. In Kiptagich, in the Rift Valley, a huge tea factory looms like a medieval fortress, on land that was once filled with trees. Iridescent green tea plantations carpet the surrounding hills. (Kenya’s Nation newspaper reports that the factory is owned by the Moi family.) On a nearby hill there’s a stretch of forlorn bamboo-and-plastic tents: the latest home of the Ogiek. …

Kenyan tribe slowly driven off its ancestral lands