72-year-old Ogiek community elder, Cosmas Chemwotei Murunga, inspects one of the trees felled by foreigners in 1976. Ogiek community protests put an end to government approved logging of the indigenous red cedar trees here. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

By Isaiah Esipisu
CHEPKITALE, Kenya , Jul 21 2020 (IPS)

The Ogiek community, indigenous peoples from Kenya’s Chepkitale National Reserve, are in the process of implementing a modern tool to inform and guide the conservation and management of the natural forest. The community has inhabited this area for many generations, long before Kenya was a republic. Through this process, they hope to get the government to formally recognise their customary tenure in line with the Community Land Act.

In collaboration with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), community elders, civil society members and representatives from the 32 clans that form the Chepkitale Ogiek community are mapping their ancestral territory using a methodology known as Participatory 3-Dimensional Modelling (P3DM).

Technically speaking, P3DM or 3D maps brings together three elements that were previously considered impossible to integrate – local spatial and natural resource knowledge, geographic information systems (GIS) and physical modelling.

“The mapping will support the spatial planning and management of the Chepkitale National Reserve by identifying actions required to address the various challenges affecting the management and conservation of the natural resources in the targeted area,” John Owino, Programme Officer for the Water and Wetlands Programme at IUCN, told IPS.

The process, which started in 2018, involves extensive dialogue with community members in order to document their history, indigenous knowledge of forest conservation and protection of natural resources using their traditional laws and geographical territories.

According to IUCN, which is providing both technical and financial support, the exercise was projected to be completed by the end of 2020. However, this target will be delayed as a result of the prevailing coronavirus pandemic.

Some of the Ogiek’s unique traditional community laws recorded in the participatory mapping exercise state that charcoal burning is totally prohibited, poaching is strictly forbidden and commercial farming is considered illicit.

“In this community, we relate with trees and nature the same way we relate with humans. Felling a mature tree in our culture is synonymous to killing a parental figure,” Cosmas Chemwotei Murunga, a 72-year-old community elder, told IPS. “Why should you cut down a tree when you can harvest its branches and use them for whatever purpose?” he posed.

Very famously, in 1976, the Ogiek community protests put an end to government-approved logging of the indigenous red cedar trees here.

The trees, felled some 44 years ago, still lie perfectly untouched on the ground in Loboot village.

The Ogiek indigenous community who live in Kenya’s Mount Elgon forest have conserved the forest’s natural ecosystem for centuries. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

While the Ogiek are an asset to the conservation of the forested area within the park, their dispute with the government over their rights to the forested land has been a long-running one.

• There have been several attempts by the government to evict the community from the forest, following the gazetting of the entire Ogiek community land as the ‘Chepkitale National Reserve in Mount Elgon,’ which made the land they live on a protected area from the year 2000.
• Since then, police officers invaded the Ogiek community land several times, torching their houses, destroying their property and forcefully driving them away from the forest.
• But in 2008, the community, through Chepkitale Indigenous People Development Project (CIPDP) — a community based organisation that brings together all Ogiek community members — went to court for arbitration. The court issued orders to immediately halt the forceful evictions. However, the case is yet to be determined.

“In many indigenous communities, governments have always used an excuse of environmental destruction to evict residents, and that was the same thing they said about our community,” Peter Kitelo, co-founder of the CIPDP, told IPS.

“However, we have proved them wrong, and when the case is finally determined, we are very hopeful that we will emerge victorious,” he said.

The 3D mapping, according to Owino, is in line with the Whakatane Mechanism, an IUCN initiative that supports the implementation of “the new paradigm” of conservation. It focuses on situations where indigenous peoples and/or local communities are directly associated with protected areas and are involved in its development and conservation as a result of their land and resource rights, including tenure, access and use.

• The mechanism promotes and supports the respect for the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities and their free prior and informed consent in protected areas policy and practice, as required by IUCN resolutions, the Convention on Biological Diversity, and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

There are previous examples of P3DM mapping proving successful among another Ogiek communities — those in the Mau Forest.

• In 2006, a P3DM exercise involving 120 men and women from 21 Ogiek clans in the Mau Forest resulted in a 3D map of the Eastern Mau Forest Complex.
• According to the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation ACP-EU (CTA), the 3D map was persuasive enough to convince the Kenyan Government of the Ogiek’s right to the land, and the need to protect the area from land grabbing and resource exploitation.

The CTA further reported that a rich P3DM portfolio of outputs, including reports, papers and maps, have been used at international forums to document the value of local/indigenous knowledge in sustainable natural resource management, conflict management and climate change adaptation, and in bridging the gap between scientific and traditional knowledge systems.

In addition to the 3D map, the Ogiek community is already working with the National Land Commission of Kenya, an independent body with several mandates. Among them is the mandate to initiate investigations, on its own initiative or based on a complaint, into present or historical land injustices and to recommend appropriate redress.

“Once completed, the 3D map will be a very important tool for this community because apart from effective management of the natural resources in Chepkitale, we will use it as an instrument to prove how we have sustainably coexisted with nature for generations,” said Kitelo.

The Ogiek community want their territory officially recognised as community land provided for by Kenya’s new constitution, particularly in relation to the Community Land Act, 2016, which provides for the “recognition, protection and registration of community land rights; management and administration of community land”.

According to elderly members of the Ogiek community, the forest is their main source of livelihood.

Inside the forest, the community keeps bees for honey production, which is a major part of their diet apart from milk, blood and meat. They also gather herbs from the indigenous trees, shrubs and forest vegetation, and feed on some species found in the forest. Their diet is not limited to bamboo shoots, wild mushrooms and wild vegetables such as stinging nettle.

“Since I was born 72 years ago, this forest has always been the main source of our livelihoods,” Chemwotei Muranga told IPS.

Now, armed with traditional knowledge of forest management and conservation of natural resources, community-based rules and regulations, and provisions within the country’s new constitution and the Community Land Act— they hope to be doing so for centuries to come.

“Living in such a place is the only lifestyle I understand,” Chemwotei Muranga said.

The inclusive approach of supporting indigenous peoples and local communities in conservation will be a major focus at the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Marseille, France, next January. The topic falls under one of the main themes of the Congress, “Upholding rights, ensuring effective and equitable governance” with sessions aiming to discuss and provide recommendations for how the conservation community can support the existing stewardship of indigenous peoples and local communities.

Mary Ondolo, 50, shows a package of honey made by the Ogiek women and packaged and refined by the Mariashoni Community Development, a community-based organisation. Credit: Robert Kibet/IPS

By Robert Kibet
NAKURU COUNTY, Kenya, Sep 22 2014 (IPS)

Just two years ago, Mary Ondolo, a 50-year-old mother of nine from Kenya’s marginalised, hunter-gatherer community, the Ogiek, used to live in a grass thatched, mud house. She’d been living there for decades. 

But thanks to a donation of livestock and equipment she has now been able to send four of her children local universities and collages and has been able to build a timber home for her family.

“I and my husband, apart from our subsistence farming, used to earn extra income through casual labour,” Ondolo, who is from the small village of Mariashoni, in the Mau Forest, which lies near Nakuru in Kenya’s Rift Valley and is about 206 kilometres northwest of Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, told IPS.“I no more rely heavily on my husband for basic household needs. In fact, my husband has numerous times asked for my help financially." -- Agnes Misoi, member of the Ogiek hunter-gatherer community

For decades Ondolo and the women of her community had been denied opportunities, choices, access to information, education, and skills, which was compounded by the cultural perception that women are mere housewives.

According to the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues report, historically, hunter-gatherer communities have been and still remain the most marginalised sections of society on the continent.

But two ago, a donation livestock and equipment made to Ondolo and a few other women in her community, changed their lives by giving them a steady financial income and, as a result, a role in decision making.

At the time, Ondolo had been trying to get the other Ogiek women to form groups in order to pool their resources and rear poultry together.

“It all started with merry-go-round after I visited one of my friends outside our locality. And having realised the many problems we women of the minority Ogiek community origin face, compounded by the deeply-rooted culture and gender disparity, I mobilised 30 women [in a savings cooperative].

“Members would put their monthly money contribution into a common pool,” Ondolo said, adding that members were entitled to borrow loans for as little as Ksh. 500 (five dollars).

Her idea, which attracted the attention of the Ogiek Peoples’ Development Programme (OPDP), a local NGO with close links to the community’s issues, soon led to the life-changing donation.

“Having learnt of our organised poultry rearing groups, OPDP in partnership with Kenya Community Development Foundation [KCDF] helped us start poultry and beekeeping enterprises,” Ondolo said.

So in 2012, in the small village of Mariashoni, a group of 80 women gathered at an open field surrounded by the indigenous Mau Forest to receive improved indigenous chicks, poultry-rearing equipment and feed.

OPDP had received about 22,000 dollars in funding from KCDF, which it used to purchase the livestock and equipment.

Honey-harvesting equipment and 40 beehives were also given to the Langam Women’s Group and Ogiek Women’s Empowerment Group. The women were also given skills training.

Ondolo said that, at first, the women who engaged in beekeeping had to overcome their own community’s cultural barriers against women earning an income. But now, she said, they all are major contributors to their families.

“My husband’s source of income comes from small subsistence farming. But thanks to the beekeeping project, I have been able to help my husband pay school fees for our children two are in university and two are in college currently, and the others are in primary and secondary school,” Ondolo said.

She is also now a lead member of the Langam Women’s Group.

“Without any sense of power whatsoever, their participation in decision-making is minimal, both at home and in the community,” Daniel Kobei, a member of the OPDP and the Ogiek community, told IPS.

Jane Rotich, a member of Ogiek Women Beekeeping Empowerment Group agreed. “Practical and cultural barriers limited the participation of us Ogiek women in decisions affecting our community, aspects of our public life, as well as in economic progress and development,” she told IPS.

In Nessuit location, about 10km from Mariashoni, Agnes Misoi, 30, was also a beneficiary of the poultry project. She currently owns over 60 chicken, having sold some to pay for the education of her two high school children.

She told IPS that prior to the introduction of the poultry project, she relied mostly on her husband — a subsistence farmer.

“I no more rely heavily on my husband for basic household needs. In fact, my husband has numerous times asked for my help financially of which I have been able to assist,” said Misoi, adding that she normally accumulates about 200 eggs in a month, which she sells for about 24 dollars.

And her husband, Samuel Misoi, has been grateful for her financial support.

“Nowadays, [my wife] is the one assisting me during financial difficulties. She helped me purchase timber for completion of our new house,” he told IPS, pointing at a three bed-roomed timber house under construction.

Fanis Inganga, a gender officer with OPDP, told IPS that the project brought great changes to the Ogiek women’s attitude, as they were now more confident to work and contribute to the economic and social betterment of their families and community.

To maximise profits and lock out brokers, the women only sell their honey to the Ogiek Beekeepers Association, which is affiliated to Mariashoni Community Development (MACODEV), a community-based organisation that refines and packages the honey into a final product.

MACODEV’s chairman Martin Kiptiony said that the women’s groups have ignited a great challenge to the men who used to consider themselves as only ones fit to engage in beekeeping.

However, poor road network bars the women’s groups from accessing readily-available markets. Instead they have to sell their packaged honey and poultry products at public gatherings in the locality. A 250ml tin of Ogiek Pure Honey sells for three dollars.

Edited by: Nalisha Adams

The writer can be contacted at kibetesq@gmail.com or on twitter @Kibet_88

Currently 100 saw millers are licensed to log 50,000 hectares of mature exotic and indigenous trees in the Mau forest reserve - the largest in Kenya stretching across 400,000 hectares. Credit: Peter Wahwai/IPS

By Peter Wahwai
RIFT VALLEY, Kenya, Nov 2 2012 (IPS)

Kenya’s Ogiek community, the indigenous group of hunter-gatherers who were evicted from the Mau Forest three years ago, say they will no longer sit by and watch logging companies profit from the resources of their traditional home while they live in poverty in tented camps around the forest without even the most basic of services, like sanitation.

“The Ogiek community has lived and depended on the Mau Forest since time immemorial,” Joseph Towett, national coordinator of the Ogiek Welfare Council, told IPS. “We have only been involved in conservation efforts through tree planting, and we do not benefit from the money accrued from this forest.

“Yet we do not see the government move to initiate development projects in the locations of Mariashoni, Neiswet and Tinet where the Ogiek community now lives.”

Currently 100 saw millers are licensed to log 50,000 hectares of mature exotic and indigenous trees in the forest reserve – the largest in the country stretching across 400,000 hectares. The millers have permits to harvest the mature trees before they fall into decay and generate over one million Kenyan shillings or 11,000 dollars in revenue for the government each month.

For the last three years some 20,000 Ogiek have been living on the outskirts of the forest in three areas: Mariashoni, Neiswet and Tinet.

The Ogiek community was forcefully evicted from the forest in 2009 after a government order to stop the massive deforestation occurring here. The government promised to find alternative land for the evictees. But in 2011 Minister for Lands James Orengo admitted that mistakes were made in the eviction process.

The community has to travel to other villages to access health care and schools. The Ogiek say that because they have to travel on foot, it takes them four to six hours to get to the nearest health facility, while children spend two to four hours a day going back and forth to school.

Towett said that the Ogiek want the Kenya Forest Service (KFS), the government agency that protects forests, to give them permission to harvest a four-hectare plantation of 8,000 mature cypress trees.

He said that they planned to enter into an agreement with a private logging company that would log and purchase the trees from them. The sale of all the trees is expected to bring in an estimated 350,000 dollars.

“This money will go towards the construction of roads, schools and health facilities. We know it is not enough, but it will be used for the most critical projects … to prevent the deaths of sick women and children that have previously occurred due to lack of facilities,” he said.

Children from the Ogiek community at the Mariashoni area near the Mau Forest. The community has to travel to other villages to access health care and schools. Courtesy: Peter Wahwai

According to the KFS, there are up to 100 licensed saw millers, including three major timber companies, who carry out tree harvesting in the Mau Forest. Loggers also have to pay the government, through the KFS, an additional fee of between 17 to 60 dollars per tree cut.

“The loggers are licensed and they operate on over 50,000 hectares of tree plantation,” the head of the Mau Forest Conservancy, Cosmas Ikiugu, told IPS. “They also harvest mature indigenous trees, and they generate over one million shillings (11,000 dollars) in revenue per month. The revenue is good, but not as high as claimed by some of the Ogiek leaders.”

The director of KFS, David Mbugua, told IPS that according to the 2005 Forest Act, a genuine saw miller must meet several requirements as stipulated by the law. This includes owning logging equipment and processing machines, and being able to provide proof of tax payments. These, he said, are requirements that the Ogiek and other communities do not meet.

Mbugua said that although the community cannot be licensed to harvest trees, it could work with the KFS to find a way to benefit from the forest.

“The Ogiek community has a genuine issue and I am aware of their concerns because we have discussed these topics with their leaders. They feel left out in development and feel that they have a right to a share of the revenue from the Mau Forest, which is constitutional. However, allowing them to get into the forest to cut trees is not the way to go. If we allow them to do that, what about other communities who also live not so far from the forest?” asked Mbugua.

He said that the Ogiek should send proposals for the projects they would like to see implemented to the KFS’s corporate social responsibility department.

But Towett claimed that corruption in the KFS was rife. He said that out of the 100 licensed saw millers, less than 30 are allocated trees because they bribe officials of KFS. The forestry service regulates which millers are allowed to harvest trees in the Mau Forest. The loggers cut down trees in turns every month, and some get more turns at logging than others.

“The three major companies normally remit (to the government) 500 million shillings (five million dollars), while the remaining saw millers remit up to 100 million shillings (one million dollars). But much of this money goes into individuals’ pockets,” said Towett. The Ogiek community believes that were it not for mismanagement of the money, there would be enough resources to initiate development projects for them.

Ikiugu confirmed that the loggers cut trees in turn, but he denied claims that some are favoured over others.

The Ogiek have also asked that the government allocate 320 square kilometres of land near the forest for their permanent settlement.

“Just like any other community, the Ogiek have a right to a portion of the revenue generated from the forest. They should demand their fair share of the revenue through legal means, including suing the government,” said environmental lawyer Bernard Ngetich. But he said he was against allowing the community to live in or next to the forest.