By LILLIAN ALUANGA

When residents of Mpeketoni village in Ozi location, Tana Delta District, first heard the land they we were living on was being auctioned, they laughed it off as a sick joke.

News had reached the dusty village that an advertisement in the local dailies mid this year had proposed the sale of at least two plots of land on which the village sat.

But as it turned out the story was no joke. Implications of having Mpeketoni taken over by the highest bidder at the fall of a hammer began to sink in and a delegation was sent to the Ministry of Lands headquarters in Nairobi.

"Generations have lived here for almost five decades. How then can someone be selling off land which doesn’t belong to them?" asks Lailoni Ali.

At stake is about 5,000 hectares of indigenous forest and other vegetation, which locals say will be negatively affected if the land is left in the hands of a private developer. What is even more worrying is that the lease extends for 999 years, which means that generations of locals may never own land in the area.

But Mpeketoni, with a population of 2,000, isn’t the only settlement within the Tana Delta District and its wetland facing such challenges.

The district’s three divisions of Kipini, Tarassa and Garsen, could all make for a study on how not to manage land.

In Galili location, the Wardei community are crying foul over their eviction from Gamba Manyatta village last December. The land is said to belong to the Tana and Athi Rivers Developmental Authority (Tarda).

Along Lake Moa, a migrant community of fishermen from Western and Nyanza provinces who have lived in the area for decades are also afraid that plans to expand area under food production projects run by Tarda to 40,000 hectares would cut right through the village.

In the wetland areas at Dide Waride, pastoralist communities are also on edge over fears that they too may have to cede some of their land. The story is the same in Dalu, where members of the Giriama community may have to move out to pave way for a biofuel production project. Matters are not any different in Chara and Ozi locations where communities are digging in for a fight amid revelations that land they have occupied for decades may have been leased to an investor with interest in aquaculture.

Such are the challenges bedevilling the Tana Delta, which is home to one of Kenya’s largest freshwater wetlands and also has the country’s longest river, at 850km, running through it.

Stretching over 130,000 hectares, the delta is home to pastoralist, farming, fishing and hunter-gatherer communities that live off its seasonally flooded lakes that provide good breeding grounds for fish. It is also a haven for birds, hippos, and crocodiles and its rich pastures offer nourishment to over 400,000 cattle, 300,000 sheep and 360,000 goats.

Recognised for its over 390 species of birds, the Tana Delta is increasingly under threat from a combination of factors that may destroy Africa’s second largest delta, after the Okavango in Namibia.

On one hand are the local communities, Pokomo, Orma, Wardie, Giriama and a few migrant groups from Nyanza and Western province, who are divided over the extent to which ‘development projects’ proposed by investors should be allowed into the area.

On the other hand are investors, both local and foreign who have either acquired or are eyeing land in the region for production of biofuels and other irrigable agricultural projects.

At least 20,000 hectares of the delta have been proposed for growing of sugarcane by Mumias Sugar Company, while another 40,000 is to be used for maize and rice production. Other investors plan to grow oil seed on at least 100,000 hectares.

Then there is the Government, struggling to strike a balance between its priorities in development, investor interests and needs of the local communities. Coupled with this are receding water levels in the Tana and changing weather patterns that have strained resources for communities living in the area.

Back in Ozi, a caveat by the Kenya Forestry Service has temporarily saved Mpeketoni village from auction, since transactions on the land have been halted.

Around Mpeketoni, land that once had rice paddies now stands bare save for a motley of reeds. A prawn fishing project failed to live up to expectations and the supply of the water that inhabitants of the area once used to irrigate their farms is no longer constant.

"This area has potential to develop other projects that are not necessarily agricultural. Eco tourism projects can also do well here," says Ngama. But controversies over who rightfully owns the land have dogged inhabitants of the village and other areas within Ozi.

Initially the Lower Tana Conservation Trust (LTCT) set up in 2005 had membership drawn from Ozi, Chara and Konemasa locations. Suspicions among the members however led to the Ozi forming a separate conservation unit carved from the LTCT land.

But long before LTCT was formed most of the land had been mapped out for what was to be Kon Dertu Ranch. Among them is one that had been leased to a foreign investor for growing of jatropha. Locals however insist the land was reverted to the Pokomo and Orma communities in the 1990s before people ‘masquerading’ as ranch owners sold off the forested area.

In the midst of all the confusion, the Government appears to have been stirred into action. Last September, Lands Minister James Orengo cancelled an allotment letter issued to an international company that wanted to start a sugarcane project in the Tana Delta.

Efforts to get the Ministry of Lands to comment on the issues raised did were not successful.