Resource- rich but powerless: Inside Taita Taveta land wars

Land sale concept. [Courtesy/GettyImages]

Two major community ranches in Taita Taveta County are under threat, with residents warning that their land is steadily slipping out of their hands. 

The locals blame mining interests, political interference, encroachment by government agencies, and weak land governance for dispossession of of Oza Ranch and Kishushe Ranch.

At the centre of the dispute are unclear competing land uses, including mining, conservation, which is seen as the latest tactic of land grabbing, and livestock grazing on community land protected under the Community Land Act. 

At Oza Ranch, tensions have flared over a grazing contract issued to a private investor, valid until 2027. The agreement allowed the investor to graze camels on 10,000 acres. 

But residents say the situation has spun out of control. This week, they protested and issued the investor a one-week ultimatum to vacate the land after he allegedly expanded beyond the agreed area by over 10,000 acres and introduced cattle, goats, and sheep.

“The investor has crossed agreed boundaries, encroached on private and community land, and brought in far more animals than approved,” said Oza community land board member Samuel Mwasaru.

“This is not just about animals,” Mwasaru added. “It shows how easily community decisions are ignored once powerful interests step in and how authorities look away as our land is taken.”

The anger in Oza is rooted in older grievances. The ranch originally covered about 58,000 acres, but nearly 30,000 acres were lost during the 2009 land adjudication process.

Residents say the loss was never explained.

“Land disappeared on paper, not on the ground,” Mwasaru said. “To this day, we don’t know who benefited.”

In 1995, Oza Ranch partnered with four other ranches and set aside about 10,000 acres to form the LUMO Conservancy, hoping conservation would bring development. 

Many now admit they did not understand the long-term legal implications, and the Ranch has now filed a petition in court to leave the conservancy for fear that the land may end up in private hands.

“We were promised jobs and schools,” Mwasaru said. “Instead, we lost control, and decisions moved far away from the community.”

Mining added another layer of trouble in Oza Ranch in 2016 when Pacific Industrial Company sought consent to prospect for minerals in Oza. The community agreed in good faith. 

Residents now say the company used its legal and technical muscle to register interests at the Ministry of Mines, effectively freezing the land from other uses before disappearing from the scene. They do not know the fate of their land as they seek a new investor to prospect for minerals. 

“That land has been idle for nearly a decade,” Mwasaru said. “We trusted the process and got paralysed.”

The community is now demanding that the government lift what it sees as an unjust administrative blockade and restore full control of the land to residents.

In neighbouring Kishushe Ranch, tensions are even higher. Two mining interests are locked in a dispute over iron ore prospecting rights.

Devki Steel Mills says it received community consent last year, before seeking a prospecting licence as required by the Mining Act, 2016. But the current ranch leadership board that came into office early this year disputes this, saying the consent came from a faction whose legitimacy was contested.

They argue that other firms, including Archer Post and Universal Industrials, which came on the ground earlier, followed the due process and obtained consent from the community to enable them to process prospecting licences.

“This month, Devki was issued a prospecting licence covering nearly 15,000 acres, even though Archer Post says it already holds a valid licence,” said Kishushe ranch board secretary Wilfred Mwalimo.

Board member Mwashinga Mjoba said the consent backing Devki was approved at a meeting attended by only a few members.

“That consent does not reflect the will of the community,” he said. “It was signed by officials whose mandate was already in dispute.”

Mjoba said the terms were exploitative, with the community being offered far below the global market rate of about Sh8,000 per tonne. The fears are compounded by the proximity of Devki Group’s pelletisation plant, opened near the ranch by William Ruto, which is designed to process iron ore.

“Once prospecting starts, mining follows,” Mjoba said. “The danger is obvious.”

Back in Oza, suspicion has also grown around a proposal by the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) to excise 10,000 acres for rhino conservation. While residents support conservation, they question why the targeted area overlaps with land believed to hold iron ore.

For communities in Taita Taveta, where large areas are already locked under parks and conservancies with little local benefit, the move is seen as yet another way to control mineral-rich land under the cover of conservation.

“We are not against wildlife,” Mwasaru said. “But conservation must not be used to deny communities their right to decide how their land is used.”

The crisis is worsened by the lack of a clear county land-use plan. Without zoning, residents say speculators, conservation lobbies, and politically connected investors can easily manipulate land classifications.

The two ranches now want fresh surveys, a county-wide land-use plan, and an inquiry into past boundary changes that swallowed community land into wildlife estates and road reserves without compensation.

“At the heart of this struggle is dignity,” Matilda Waleghwa, Kishushe Board Chairman, said. “We sit on valuable resources, yet we are treated as spectators.”

The disputes at Oza and Kishushe reflect a wider national problem: communities living on resource-rich land remain the weakest players in Kenya’s extractive economy. Without civic education, transparent governance, and strict enforcement of land laws, residents fear mineral wealth will continue to enrich outsiders, while rightful landowners are pushed further to the margins.