Kenya squatters told to quit or...

2008-07-16 08:37

Nairobi - The Kenyan government on Tuesday gave tens of thousands of people up to October 30 to vacate swathes of a threatened forest in the country's Rift Valley region or face evictions.

Prime Minister Raila Odinga said authorities would fence off the 400 000-acre Mau Forest Complex, a blanket of indigenous woodland in the central Rift Valley region, west of the capital Nairobi, to stop further encroachment.

"We shall re-demarcate the forest boundaries, fence off the forest and also put in place an effective long-term management plan to save the Mau," Odinga explained.

"Despite its critical importance for sustaining economic development, the Mau Forests Complex has suffered from rampant illegal logging and charcoal making; by illegal and irregular settlements, as well as ill-informed excisions of forest lands for unplanned settlements."

35 million people live in poverty

Odinga added: "The excisions and the widespread encroachments have led to the destruction of nearly a quarter of the Mau Complex area over the last 15 years. Such an extensive and on-going destruction of a key natural asset for the country is nothing less than a national emergency.

"It presents significant environmental and economic threats. It also underlines a breakdown of law and order."

Officials said that up to 50 000 people, including squatters, had illegally occupied the forest, which was a water catchment area for many Rift Valley lakes.

The warning came two days after Nobel Peace Laureate Wangari Maathai said the country would regret its failure to protect the environment, notably forests and wetlands.

Much of Kenya's land surface was affected by desertification and about 10 million of the country's 35 million people lived in poverty in areas classified as arid or semi-arid, according to official figures.

Environmentalists had long argued that further deforestation could only worsen the problem of recurring droughts and frequent food shortages, particularly in the arid and semi-arid areas.

During his last decade in power, President Daniel arap Moi - who retired in 2002 - authorised the cutting down of thousands of hectares of forest land, causing complaints from environmentalists.

- AFP