Human Rights and the Environment

Case Study: Mau Forest

Country: Kenya

Region: Africa

Issues: Public Participation, Resource Extraction, Indigenous People, Displacement, Litigation

The Ogiek people in Kenya live under the threat of eviction from their ancestral homeland because of the government's desire to open the Mau Forest region to development and resettlement by landless peoples.[1] Reliant primarily on hunting and honey gathering, the Ogiek are one of the last remaining indigenous communities in Kenya[2] with only 20,000 remaining in the Mau Forest, where they continue their traditional way of life.[3] In the late 1990s, the Kenyan government attempted to evict the Ogiek people from the Tinet region of the Mau forest, allegedly to allow for logging operations and tea and flower plantations.[4] The Ogiek sued the government in May 1999, seeking a declaration that the proposed eviction violated their rights to residence, equal protection, and freedom from discrimination.[5] In February 2000, Kenya's high court summarily dismissed the Ogiek's lawsuit on the grounds that the tribe was exploiting forest resources in contravention of federal conservation statutes.[6] The court declared that the evictions were necessary to save the Kenyan people from environmental disaster.[7]

After President Kibaki's victory in December 2002, there was hope that the new Rainbow Coalition government would reverse the decision to excise the forest regions.[8] It has failed to do so, and the Ogiek people continue to face the risk of eviction.[9] Additionally, in May 2004, it was reported that 4,500 acres of land designated for relocating 600 landless Ogiek people had been secretly divided and distributed among influential politicians and members of society, in violation of Kenyan law.[10] This incident highlights serious concerns regarding the future of the Ogiek people if the government is successful in removing them from their ancestral land.

[1] Survival International, Kenya: Government destroys the Ogiek's forest (Nov. 30, 2001), at http://www.survival-international.org/news.php?id=86 (last visited Mar. 3, 2005). 

[2] See Global Response, Protect Forests and Indigenous Peoples/Kenya, at http://www.globalresponse.org/gra.php?i=1/02&j=printable (last visited Mar. 2, 2005).

[3] Id.

[4] See Alphonso Van Marsh, Small Kenyan Tribe Battles Government Over Fate of Forest, CNN (Oct. 23, 1999), at http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/africa/9910/23/kenya.forest/index.html (last visited Mar. 2, 2005).

[5] Id.

[6] See Tervil Okoko, Kenya's Indigenous Honey Hunters Lose Their Forest Home, ENS (Mar. 24, 2000), available at http://www.ogiek.org/news/news-post-00-03-1.htm (last visited March 2, 2005).

[7] Id.

[8] See Nation, State Might Rethink Move on Forests, Court Told (Mar. 25, 2003), available at http://www.ogiek.org/news/news-post-03-03-2.htm (last visited Mar. 2, 2005).

[9] See Survival International, Ogiek at risk of eviction (Mar. 1, 2004), at http://www.survival-international.org/news.php?id=190 (last visited Mar. 3, 2005). 

[10] See Ogiek.org, Ogiek Families "Robbed" of their Land (May 10, 2004), at http://www.ogiek.org/news/news-post-04-12-5.htm (last visited Mar. 2, 2005).

Last Updated: 09/09/05