Encroachment: Environmental Committee team to tour Eastern Mau

The National Assembly Environmental Committee led by Maara MP Kareke Mbiuki will on Friday make a fact-finding visit to the Eastern Mau.

This comes months after the government formed a multi-agency team to help save the tower from incessant encroachment.

The government in August formed a multi-agency team to save the Mau Forest and end recurrent ethnic clashes and evictions in the area.

A senior official with Kenya Forest Service told the Star that the establishment of the cut line was on course.

"The profiling is ongoing to determine the number of people to be affected," he said.

The source said each of the affected will be given five acres no matter how many acres such owners had before.

The team seeks to resolve the Eastern Mau land problem that has resulted in evictions, deaths, destruction of property, ethnic clashes and displacement of thousands of families.

Following conflict over land in Molo and Njoro, scores have been killed and injured with over 198 houses burnt in 10 villages and more than 3,000 families displaced.

The team has already started it's work and is expected to create clear boundaries between settlement schemes and the forestland.

Environment Principal Secretary Chris Kiptoo had said besides restoring peace and security, the team, which has one month to complete its work, will focus on restoring degraded forest lands by 2022.

Lands PS Nicholas Muraguri had said the team will mark forest cut lines based on the 1994 maps to avoid conflicts between the Kenya Forest Service and communities.

Authorities say it is important to save the Mau Forest because it is an important water tower in the country.

The formation of the multi-agency team came after several NGOs in Nakuru asked the government to avert further violence in settlement schemes within and neighbouring Eastern Mau along the Nakuru-Narok border.