• Mau Forest, the country’s top water catchment area, has been a weapon that claimed the political lives of prominent politicians.
• Local leaders have rejected the government’s efforts to clear the forest of the squatters to preserve the area that is fast getting degraded
Image: ERIC THUO
The National Land Commission has three months to conclude investigations into the eviction of more than 4,350 squatters from 10 forest blocks in East Mau.
The Senate has endorsed a report by Lands, Environment and Natural Resources committee directing the commission to probe claims of historical injustice meted out on the evictees.
The evictees lament that they have been squatters since they were removed from East Mau which comprises 10 forest blocks, back in 1988.
“The committee recommends that NLC expedites its investigation into the claim by East Mau evictees as a historical injustice and submits a report to the ministry within three months of the adoption of the Senate,” the report reads.
The committee waded into the subject after the evictees petitioned the House to investigate the allegations of historical land injustices.
Mau Forest, the country’s top water catchment area, has claimed the political lives of prominent politicians.
Local leaders have rejected the government’s efforts to clear the forest of the squatters to preserve the site that is fast getting degraded.
In their petition, the evictees claimed that they lived in the forests for 70 years legally as its caretakers during the colonial period.
They also lived there during the reign of President Jomo Kenyatta and partly during Daniel Moi’s government before they were evicted in 1988.
They alleged that the forests were used to resettle other people from Bomet, Kericho and Baringo counties.
“The members are currently landless and have lived as squatters since 1988 and have never been allocated land,” reads the petition in part.
They said they had written to NLC and the Truth Justice and Reconciliation Commission seeking their intervention without success.
In its submission to the committee, the Ministry of Environment noted that since the inception of forestry practice in Kenya in 1907, the formal arrangement was to have labourers (employed to tend to trees) residing in the forest houses provided by the government.
However, the arrangement changed in 1988 when the forest labourers were required to work from outside the public forests.
“This, therefore, meant that the labourers had to vacate the forest houses and this should not be interpreted to mean evictions,” the Ministry said in its submission.
The government insisted that the blocks have never been degazetted as forestland.
However, the committee in its inquiry established that the commission was also seized of the petitioners’ case and that the investigation was at an advanced level.
“The committee invited NLC and consequently submitted that the petition has been referred to the commission’s committee on historical land injustices for investigation,” the report says.
Edited by Henry Makori