•Out of 42,007.85 acres(17,000 ha), 4,942.1 acres (2,000 ha) will be restored through tree planting
•Electric fencing of highly degraded areas will be undertaken covering 119 km.
Image: FILE
Restoration of Mau forest - at close to Sh1 billion - will begin immediately the illegal settlers have been evicted.
Out of 42,007.85 acres (17,000ha), 4,942.1 acres (2,000 ha) will be restored through tree planting, a document in our possession shows.
"These areas were completely degraded and cannot be restored by natural regeneration hence the need to fence off to facilitate tree planting in these areas," part of the report says.
Sh16,396,000 has been budgetted for the eviction of the illegal settlers, who have destroyed huge sections of the forest.
Sh896,840,000 will be required for restoration.
The report says the remaining 37,065.75 acres (15,000ha) will be rehabilitated through natural regeneration and enrichment planting regeneration.
The area has sufficient vegetation to support the production of seedlings from the existing trees, seedlings, saplings and shrubs.
For this to succeed, all potential seedling sources, quality and quantities, will be mapped and profiled.
For the 4,942.1 acres (2,000 ha), the seedling requirement will be 1,250,000.
This will include the use of bamboo to rehabilitate riparian ecosystems and critical catchment areas.
After settlers have been kicked out, surveys to establish beacons necessary for fencing of the tower is set to be undertaken.
Electric fencing of highly degraded areas will be undertaken covering 119 km.
To ward off any further attempts to invade and encroach, joint enforcement will be put in place.
This will involve recruitment of additional rangers to provide protection, surveillance, daily patrols and reporting.
The cutline that was put in place in 2014 could also be abolished.
A taskforce comprising Nyayo Tea Zones Development Corporation, Kenya Forest Service and Tea Research Foundation of Kenya has been constituted to oversee the establishment of buffer belts around all forest ecosystems.
The team had moved to Olposimoru and Maasai Mau Forest boundary, carrying out the exercise.
Its objective was to establish a tea buffer between the two forest blocks.
The team pegged 100m tea buffer belt strip demarcating the boundary between the two forest blocks.
The area targeted was of 24km long and 100m wide.
The initial plan was to create a buffer belt around all forest ecosystems to protect it from human encroachment.
However, the Environmental and Social Impact Assessment was not done as per the Second Schedule of the Environmental Management and Coordination Act (EMCA) 1999 and subsequent Amendment Act, 2015.
"This has created a perception that the government had legitimized encroachment in areas outside the cutline," part of the report says.
A cutline was ideally meant to separate settlements from forest land.
It was aimed at acting as a buffer to avert encroachment from illegal settlers.
However, the implementation of the cutline was between Maasai Mau forest block and Olposimoru.
This led to further degradation of the once intact ecosystem and the viability of the cutline was ill-advised.
After removal of settlers, the cutline shall be abolished, with a consultation with KFS and Nyayo Tea Zones.
This will be accomplished by leaving the tea plantations to re-grow into the forest and become part of the Water Tower.
The cutline can then be moved to the original borderline of the Maasai Mau, separating the local community and the recovered forest area.
Among the benefits expected from the protection of the tower include the increased rivers flow and recharge of rivers such as Amalo and Ewaso nyiro.
Other benefits include reduced human-wildlife conflicts caused by water scarcity and sustainable and increased tourism activities in the Maasai Mara National Reserve.