Kenya evicts squatters from vital Mau Forest

By Daniel Wallis

MAU FOREST, Kenya (Reuters) - Trudging out of the woods in a heavy downpour with a large sack roped to his back and two black chickens cradled in his arms, Eric arap Tuwei joins his wife and six children in a flimsy grass shelter.

The 40-year-old and hundreds of other families now camped at Kapkembu on the edge of Kenya's most important forest are at the centre of a political and environmental battle that could define the fate of east Africa's biggest economy.


The fall-out from the controversy could affect the result of the next election in 2012, and could even trigger more of the ethnic bloodletting that shocked the world after the last poll.

"I'm still in shock because I don't know what to do. I just want the government to step in and sort this out," he said as thunder boomed overhead. "I was born in the forest. Everything I own is in there ... 40 years of my hard work is still in there."

Kenya's coalition government says it is vital to relocate 20,000 families that it says are doing irreversible damage to the Mau Forest Complex, the country's biggest closed-canopy forest and a vital water catchment region.
The area of southwestern Kenya is a water tower for 10 million Kenyans. But illegal settlement and deforestation have destroyed 24 percent, or 107,000 hectares (264,000 acres), of its trees over 20 years.

What happens to the Mau, which feeds Lake Victoria and the White Nile, has big implications for a region where 23 million people are afflicted by a fifth year of drought.

The forest settlers, many of whom were sold false title deeds, reject the government's position that they have no right to the land and many are fearful about where they will live now.