• The Act provides for the recognition, protection and registration of community land rights as well as the management and administration of community land.
• Isiolo representatives fault the Lands ministry for issuing a notice declaring their county an adjudication area and demand its reversal.
Marginalised communities want the implementation of the Community Land Act hastened.
Their land, according to Pastoralist Parliamentary Group secretary-general Rehema Jaldesa, is exposed to land grabbers.
Jaldesa, who is the Isiolo Woman Representative, gave the example of her county where communities have for years tussled with the Kenya Defence Forces over 1,200 hectares.
Representatives of the communities handed their views to the National Land Commission and the Ministry of Lands last week at Four Points by Sheraton Hotel.
Jaldesa regretted that the micromanagement of the NLC, hence the slow process, and demanded that it keeps off.
There will be a register of all community land under community land registration. Communities will be registered as corporate entities and their register opened and maintained.
Management committees will be formed to manage every community land.
Isiolo communities said it was wrong for the ministry to issue a notice declaring the county an adjudication area and demanded its reversal.
They said the implementation of the September 2016 Act will secure their land.
"Parliament did its part and passed the Act. The ministry and the NLC should have done theirs," the said.
Community land is identified on the basis of ethnicity, culture and similarity of interests. It includes portions held, managed or used by specific communities as forests, grazing areas, shrines, ancestral land and land traditionally occupied by hunter-gatherers or held by the county governments as trust land.
Over 80 per cent of land in the country is classified as arid and semi-arid with low agricultural production.
Lands CS Faridah Karoney, who was represented by Land secretary Esther Ogega, said they had held civic education in 24 counties ahead of community land registration.
“Approximately, 25,000 participants have been sensitised. Five out of the nine counties under the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) land governance programme for the attainment of Vision 2030 have submitted inventories of their respective community land for registration,” the CS said.
She told the occasion also attended by NLC chairperson Gershom Otachi, that huge resources will be required for the demarcation and adjudication of community land in the 24 counties.
Huge resources will similarly be required to empower communities.
“Political goodwill is key in the implementation. This will enhance and facilitate the registration of community land,” the CS said, adding that the oversight role of Parliament is critical.
FAO representative in Kenya Tobias Takavarsha said the management of land as a primary resource for production and livelihoods is crucial for the country's stability.
“The capacity to sustain livelihoods, overcome poverty and malnutrition and improve food and nutrition is greatly influenced by the ability of communities to effectively control productive resources, in particular land,” Takavarsha said.