In a landmark ruling in May 2017, the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights affirmed the Indigenous Ogiek’s status as ancestral owners of the Mau Forest in Kenya and ordered the government to compensate the group for both material and moral losses, grant them collective title to their ancestral land, and reform policy and legislation denying Indigenous peoples their rights. On Nov. 12 this year, seven and a half years since that ruling, the Tanzania-based court gave Kenya three months to report back on measures it has taken to comply. There’s been only limited evidence of compliance since the ruling — the forest service allowed some Ogiek access to areas of the forest and operated joint patrols in portions of the forest complex in Nakuru county in 2018, for instance. At the same time, however, Kenyan authorities conducted several rounds of evictions of Ogiek and other communities from the forest, most recently in November 2023, in Narok county. In that incident, Kenya Forest Service rangers evicted more than 700 Ogiek from their homes in Sasimwani, in the Maasai Mau portion of this cluster of forests, and destroyed or damaged their property. The 2,700-square-kilometer (1,040-square-mile) Mau Forest Complex is a vital ecosystem, a landscape vital to sustaining many rivers and lakes that support agriculture and forestry far beyond its boundaries. The forest is also an important biodiversity hotspot, supporting a variety of rare and threatened animals, including elephants (Loxodonta africana), mountain bongos (Tragelaphus eurycerus) and African golden cats (Caracal aurata).…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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