By Lucianne Limo

More than 20,000 Ogiek could lose access to their ancestral land following plans by the State to rid the Mau Forest of human settlements.

The Ogiek are one of the last remaining indigenous communities who have lived in and around the Mau for hundreds of years.

Prime Minister Raila Odinga’s taskforce on Mau recommended landless Ogiek should be settled near their ancestral land in areas that are not biological diversity hotspots.

The report says an extensive area, covering about 18,600 ha, is affected by encroachments along the cut line of the 2001 excision.

The taskfroce says on October 2001, the State excised 61,586.5 hectares of the Mau Forest complex.

Although the official purpose of the excisions was mainly to settle the Ogiek and victims of 1990s clashes, many undeserving people, including politicians, were allocated parcels of land in the excised areas.

Households in the said encroached area is estimated at 1,687ha.

According to Ogiek elders, the encroachers are not the community members, although they previously occupied the area. In late 1990s, the Government attempted to evict the Ogiek people from the Tinet region of the Mau forest, allegedly to allow for logging, tea and flower plantations.

The Ogiek moved to court in May 1999, seeking a declaration that the proposed eviction violated their rights.

In February 2000, the High Court summarily dismissed the Ogiek lawsuit on grounds the community was exploiting forest resources.