• Chuka Council of Elders wanted 24,000 acres of ancestral land returned, they got 10,000 acres.
• National Land Commission orders KFS to surrender land plus 2,000-acre buffer zone
Image: Dennis Dibondo
The Chuka Council of Elders are rejoicing after the National Land Commission awarded them 10,000 acres of ancestral land in Mount Kenya Forest.
In a March 1 Gazette Notice, the NLC ordered the Kenya Forest Service to surrender the land. It also ordered that 2,000 acres be set aside for community forest that will act as a buffer zone.
The NLS asked the Chief Land Registrar, the Director of Settlement and the county government to establish a conventional settlement scheme in Tharaka Nithi.
"We are very happy that at least we got the 10,000, though we wanted 24, 000 acres. We're grateful for what we have got so far," Atiriri Bururi Ma Chuka chairman Ngai M’Oboro said.
A meeting will be called soon for members to agree on sharing the land.
The elders said they inhabited the forest before it was excised in 1934 and classified as part of the Mount Kenya Forest Reserve.
They sought the return of the section called Magundu ma Chuka, meaning fallow farmland. They said they were dispossessed 80 years ago.
M'Oboro said they will conserve the forest as they did before their eviction when President Daniel Moi suspended Shamba system in 1990.
“After losing the land to the colonial government, we joined the Mau Mau uprising hoping to get it back after independence," he said.
The elder was an agent who passed information from the government to the community but he was arrested, tortured and all his teeth were knocked out by colonial officers.
Elders used to perform rituals and celebrations in the forest where the Mugumo tree is considered sacred. The forest provided resources for food, housing and work.
After losing the land to the colonial government, we joined the Mau Mau uprising hoping to get it back after independenceAtiriri Bururi Ma Chuka chairman Ngai M’Oboro
In December 2014 they held prayers in Kiamuriuki Forest, Mount Kenya East, after they lost a case in which they opposed the fencing the forest. They said it should be 12km away from their land.
They wanted to be allowed to harvest trees they had planted in 1973.
On August 10, 214, the High Court sitting in Meru halted construction of two multi-billion-shilling tourist hotels in the forest after the elders objected. The court also barred five licensed loggers from harvesting exotic trees from Kiamuriuki plantation in Chuka Igambang'ombe constituency, where they cut without replanting.
The elders said the loggers encroached into the forest and decimated camphor trees. Mount Kenya Forest was designated by Unesco as a Biosphere Reserve and World Heritage Site in 1978 and 1997, respectively.
In 2003, 3,500 elders went to court, claiming ownership of 24,000 acres