Loita Forest, situated in Narok county, is approximately 147 kilometres away from Narok town but due to the unpaved road, it takes close to four hours to get there.
The journey however is livened up by the beautiful green plains.
The population recorded in the sub locations within a five kilometre buffer of the forest in 1999 was 113,045.
The area is primarily inhabited by the Iloitai, one of the 15 or so sub-groups of the Maasai.
Apart from their traditional reputation as the most conservative of the Maasai, they are also regarded as one of the nearly “unreachable” people in the world. Wildebeests, zebras and gazelles graze side by side with the community’s cattle in this region.
The Loita Naiminia Enkiyio Forest or forest of the lost child, stands at an altitude of about 2,300 feet above sea level and covers an area of about 33,000 hectares.
It is located between the Mara and Serengeti plains and the forests of the western escarpment of the great rift-valley.
Cedar and podocarpus are the two main types of trees that are in the forest. “This is one of the last closed canopy truly indigenous forests in Kenya,” said Moses Kipelian, an elder from the community. The forest is the main water catchment area in the region.
What astonishes most people about Loita Naiminia Enkiyio forest is the way the community has from time immemorial safeguarded and conserved it. “Not a single tree has been cut down for human use unless it has fallen. For you to get it, you must consult with the community elders who will grant you permission to use the fallen tree for your needs,” says Taiko Olenku Ngulai, also an elder in the community.
This they say is due to the community’s strong and vibrant traditional practices. This is quite unique as the country’s forest cover has dropped from 30 per cent in 1963 to the current 6.99 per cent.
The Loitans, a colloquial they love to use on themselves, regard themselves as the custodians of the forest.
“The forest is seen as alive and responsive to their physical, spiritual and traditional needs thus the need to conserve it,” says Taiko. The forest also holds sites or shrines that the community goes to celebrate different events like initiation. “It actually acts as our cathedral just like any other religious group,” added Taiko.
The forest supports an estimated 50 species of mammals including elephants, buffalo, hippo, antelopes and the predators.
It is also an important site for the threatened restricted range grey- crested helmet shrike and the only Kenyan site for the brown-capped apalis, and one of the very few for the Magpie shrike.
The adjacent grasslands are occupied by resident and migrant ungulate species of plains game, which graze alongside Maasai livestock.
The forest also occupies a special place in the Maasai legend and mythology. One of these ceremonies is the celebration of the Olorip Olasar, the head of an age group, who has to stand under an Omatamaio Oleyen, a tree in the forest, for the whole night without moving a muscle or even swallowing his saliva.
“This is one of the ceremonies that brings the community together as we also have some of us from Tanzania as the border passes quite near us,” says Ngate Ole Lepore, one of the residents of Osupuko orobi.
The forest also cushions the community against drought. When there is severe drought, the people are allowed to graze their animals in the forest. Cattle for the Maasai are very important as they act as both social and economic tools in their lives.
Traditionally, the community is governed by a council of elders, under a patron who is the chief Laibon. The current Laibon is Laibon Mokompo, who also acts as their spiritual leader.
The chief Laibon makes all the major decisions on the community’s behalf and also performs all initiation and rites of passage ceremonies, all which are held in the forest. The council of elders act as the judicial arm of the people. “Any one who makes the mistake of going and cutting wood from the forest is brought to the council and disciplinary action is taken on them,” says Moses Kipelian who is an elder in the community.
The forest, however, faces major challenges from within and without of the community. From the increasing external interventions by the county officials and other communities together with state agencies, the people have been struggling to maintain access and control of the forest.
“A major setback is lack of secure land tenure granting the local community ownership and access rights to the forest. In the recent past, the then Narok County Council made attempts to gazette the forest as a nature reserve for economic purpose through tourism development. If this gazettement had been successful, it would have extinguished all the rights, interests, and benefits that the Loita community have under African customary law,” says forest expert Rudolf Makhanu, currently the operations manager of Conquest Africa.
To counteract these negative impact, stakeholders within Loita have adopted Participatory Forest Management, that brings together stakeholders for collective action based on common vision as articulated by a participatory Forest Management Plan.
Makhanu says this approach involves forest adjacent communities and other stakeholders in management of forests within a framework that contributes to community’s livelihoods.
The Loitas, who have successfully managed their forest for hundreds of years, are now pleading with the National Land Commission to help them by gazetting the forest as community land.
It is one of the few non-gazetted trust land indigenous forests in Kenya and supports a variety of wildlife, with a great cultural and enduring spiritual value to the local communities.
“If the people of Loita have been able to safeguard the forest for all those years since the colonial rule, why should it be taken away from them?” asks Charles Ole Saitabau, a member of the recently setup commission of land in Narok county, which acts on behalf of the National Land Commission.
The participation guarantees sustainable supply of forest based products and enhances ecological functions of the forests.
“What we are advocating is for that that land to be registered as community land based on their interest and the technical advice from the National Lands Commission, existing laws on land policy formulation and community agreements,” says Koin Josephat, the deputy projects manager at Ilkerin Loita Integral Development Programme (ILIDP) an organisation that has been operating in the area for over 30 years representing the community and is currently spearheading loita forest community conservation initiatives.
“Our project goal is to develop a sustainably managed Loita forest with functional and participatory approaches in place equitably providing the community with environmental goods and services and also to provide the local community with ownership and access rights to the forest through advocacy and lobbying,” added Koin.
“We are trying to educate the community on land policies and laws to enhance their understanding on their constitutional rights as relates to land reforms,” says Saitabau.