# Mau Forest and the Ogiek: water tower, conservation and restitution

The Mau Forest story is not just conservation: Ogiek honey tenure, colonial forest reserves, hunting bans, water-tower politics, eviction, African Court recognition, reparations and continued removals.

*This story part of: Kenya: from the Swahili coast to the republic*
*This story parallel: The colonial map of Kenya: neglected regions and regional inequality*
*This story parallel: Fortress conservation: parks, conservancies, and the landless*
*This story continues: Dorobo is not one tribe: Okiek, Yaaku, and Kenya's forest peoples*
*This story part of: Ecology and environment*

## c. 1000 — The Ogiek as forest-dwelling Southern Nilotic hunter-gatherers of the Mau

The Ogiek (Okiek) are a Kalenjin-related, Southern Nilotic people long settled in the highland forests of the Mau Escarpment and around Mount Elgon. Their own traditions say they were always in these forests, while some scholars trace an earlier movement south from the highlands north of Lake Turkana. Whether they are an aboriginal remnant of the region or a Southern Nilotic group that specialised in forest foraging is debated.

*Source: Okiek*

*Source: Protected areas, Indigenous rights and land restitution: the Ogiek judgment of the African Court of Human and Peoples’ Rights and community land protection in Kenya*

*Source: Protected areas, Indigenous rights and land restitution: the Ogiek judgment of the African Court of Human and Peoples' Rights and community land protection in Kenya*

*Source: African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights v Republic of Kenya, Reparations Judgment*

*Source: Kenyan government must end illegal evictions of Ogiek in Mau Forest*

## c. 1750 — The Ogiek and their honey economy of the Mau Forest

Honey sits at the centre of Ogiek subsistence, ritual, and exchange. Families keep named beehive sites in the forest, tapping different flowering zones through the year, and honey served as both food and a form of currency. Hunting and gathering rounded out a livelihood tied closely to the forest's seasons.

*Source: Okiek*

*Source: Protected areas, Indigenous rights and land restitution: the Ogiek judgment of the African Court of Human and Peoples' Rights and community land protection in Kenya*

*Source: African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights v Republic of Kenya, Reparations Judgment*

*Source: Kenyan government must end illegal evictions of Ogiek in Mau Forest*

## c. 1850 — Ogiek honey traded to Maasai and Nandi neighbours

The Ogiek exchanged forest honey and hides with pastoralist and farming neighbours such as the Maasai and Nandi, receiving livestock, iron, and grain in return. These same cattle-keepers called the Ogiek il-torrobo, or Dorobo, a term for people without herds. The relationship mixed regular trade with a social ranking that placed foragers below pastoralists.

*Source: Okiek*

*Source: Protected areas, Indigenous rights and land restitution: the Ogiek judgment of the African Court of Human and Peoples' Rights and community land protection in Kenya*

*Source: African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights v Republic of Kenya, Reparations Judgment*

*Source: Kenyan government must end illegal evictions of Ogiek in Mau Forest*

> The state reclassified homeland as forest property.

## c. 1930 — Colonial forest reserves cut the Ogiek off from the Mau

British forest and game policy gazetted much of the Mau as protected reserve and treated the resident Ogiek as squatters with no title. Restrictions on hunting and residence began to sever the community from the resources they had always used. The state did not recognise the Ogiek as a distinct people with land claims.

*Source: Protected areas, Indigenous rights and land restitution: the Ogiek judgment of the African Court of Human and Peoples’ Rights and community land protection in Kenya*

*Source: Protected areas, Indigenous rights and land restitution: the Ogiek judgment of the African Court of Human and Peoples' Rights and community land protection in Kenya*

*Source: African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights v Republic of Kenya, Reparations Judgment*

*Source: Kenyan government must end illegal evictions of Ogiek in Mau Forest*

## 1977 — Kenya's 1977 hunting ban forces the Ogiek toward farming

Kenya's nationwide ban on hunting outlawed a core part of Ogiek subsistence and pushed many families into settled agriculture and livestock keeping. Combined with continued eviction from reserved forest, the ban reshaped a way of life built on mobility and the forest. Some Ogiek kept beekeeping alive alongside the new crops.

*Source: Wildlife (Conservation and Management) (Prohibition on Hunting of Game Animals) Regulations, 1977*

*Source: World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples - Kenya: Hunter-gatherers*

*Source: Protected areas, Indigenous rights and land restitution: the Ogiek judgment of the African Court of Human and Peoples' Rights and community land protection in Kenya*

*Source: African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights v Republic of Kenya, Reparations Judgment*

*Source: Kenyan government must end illegal evictions of Ogiek in Mau Forest*

## c. 2009 — Mau is governed as a national water tower and eviction zone

The Mau Forest became framed as a national water tower, but conservation policy also became an eviction machine. Ogiek and other forest residents faced removal even when courts later recognized indigenous land rights.

*Source: Protected areas, Indigenous rights and land restitution: the Ogiek judgment of the African Court of Human and Peoples' Rights and community land protection in Kenya*

*Source: African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights v Republic of Kenya, Reparations Judgment*

*Source: Kenyan government must end illegal evictions of Ogiek in Mau Forest*

## c. 2009 — Ogiek repeatedly evicted from the Mau Forest

The Ogiek, a forest-dwelling hunter-gatherer people, were pushed out of the Mau Forest in a series of evictions framed as protecting a vital water catchment. Their homes were burned and families scattered, even though they had lived lightly in the forest for generations. Officials blamed forest loss on settlement while large-scale logging and political land handouts drew less action.

*Source: Protected areas, Indigenous rights and land restitution: the Ogiek judgment of the African Court of Human and Peoples' Rights and community land protection in Kenya*

*Source: African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights v Republic of Kenya, Reparations Judgment*

*Source: Kenyan government must end illegal evictions of Ogiek in Mau Forest*

## 26 May 2017 — African Court finds Kenya violated Ogiek rights

The African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights ruled that Kenya had violated the rights of the Ogiek by evicting them from the Mau Forest. It rejected the claim that the Ogiek harmed the forest and recognised their status as an indigenous people with rights to their ancestral land. The judgment was one of Africa's strongest legal statements that conservation cannot justify dispossessing forest peoples.

*Source: Protected areas, Indigenous rights and land restitution: the Ogiek judgment of the African Court of Human and Peoples' Rights and community land protection in Kenya*

*Source: African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights v Republic of Kenya, Reparations Judgment*

*Source: Kenyan government must end illegal evictions of Ogiek in Mau Forest*

## 26 May 2017 — African Court rules Kenya violated Ogiek land rights

On 26 May 2017 the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights held that Kenya had breached the African Charter by evicting the Ogiek from the Mau Forest without consultation, consent, or compensation. The Court recognised the Mau as Ogiek ancestral land and found violations of rights to property, culture, religion, and non-discrimination. A 2022 reparations judgment ordered land restitution and compensation.

*Source: Protected areas, Indigenous rights and land restitution: the Ogiek judgment of the African Court of Human and Peoples’ Rights and community land protection in Kenya*

*Source: Ogiek case: protection of an indigenous community in Kenya*

*Source: Africa Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights v Republic of Kenya, Application 006 of 2012, Reparations Judgment*

*Source: Protected areas, Indigenous rights and land restitution: the Ogiek judgment of the African Court of Human and Peoples' Rights and community land protection in Kenya*

*Source: African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights v Republic of Kenya, Reparations Judgment*

*Source: Kenyan government must end illegal evictions of Ogiek in Mau Forest*

## 23 June 2022 — African Court orders reparations for the Ogiek

In a follow-up judgment the African Court ordered Kenya to pay compensation, return Ogiek ancestral land and formally recognise their community. It set out concrete steps for restitution rather than leaving the earlier ruling as a symbol. Implementation on the ground remained slow and contested, and further evictions were reported even after the order.

*Source: Protected areas, Indigenous rights and land restitution: the Ogiek judgment of the African Court of Human and Peoples' Rights and community land protection in Kenya*

*Source: African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights v Republic of Kenya, Reparations Judgment*

*Source: Kenyan government must end illegal evictions of Ogiek in Mau Forest*

## December 2022 — The 30x30 target and warnings of mass eviction

Governments agreed a global goal to protect thirty percent of land and sea by 2030, known as 30x30. Groups including Survival International and Amnesty International warned it could dispossess millions of indigenous and rural people if it followed the fortress model. Supporters said it need not, if it recognised community land rights, but the risk to people like Kenya's Ogiek and pastoralists was real enough to spark alarm.

*Source: Protected areas, Indigenous rights and land restitution: the Ogiek judgment of the African Court of Human and Peoples' Rights and community land protection in Kenya*

*Source: African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights v Republic of Kenya, Reparations Judgment*

*Source: Kenyan government must end illegal evictions of Ogiek in Mau Forest*

## c. 2023 — Ogiek evictions continue despite the court victory

After the 2017 and 2022 rulings, Kenyan authorities continued to demolish Ogiek homes and clear families from the Mau, at times citing conservation and carbon-credit schemes. Rights groups documented fresh evictions that ran against the African Court's orders. Implementation of the judgment remained stalled.

*Source: Kenyan government must end illegal evictions of Ogiek in Mau Forest*

*Source: Ogiek case: protection of an indigenous community in Kenya*

*Source: Protected areas, Indigenous rights and land restitution: the Ogiek judgment of the African Court of Human and Peoples' Rights and community land protection in Kenya*

*Source: African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights v Republic of Kenya, Reparations Judgment*