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Government official
says land will not be excised
by
John Kamau, Rights Features Service
(May 23,
2001) The Kenyan government has announced that it will not excise
any forestland until all the cases filed in court are heard and
determined.
In a statement
seen as a victory for environmentalists opposed to the excision
of an approximated 10 percent of Kenya forest land, the permanent
secretary in the ministry of environment and natural resources,
Dr. Mohammed Isahakia, announced the decision.
"We have
decided to halt any intended excision until all the cases filed
in court are heard and determined," said Isahakia.
This was
the first time the government had made it public that it will
let the courts finish hearing the impending suits filed against
its decision to degazette some 167,000 hectares of forests.
The decision
comes after immense lobbying by both local and international environmentalists
urging the government to stop any excision and remove surveyors
from forestland.
Some 70 percent
of the forest land, which the government intended to dish out
to "landless," is occupied by the Ogiek indigenous community who
fear they might lose their only ancestral land.
The Ogiek
have filed a case in High Court, Nairobi, challenging the government's
decision to degazette their homeland and the planned intention
to give away part of their land. Another case has been filed by
an environmental lawyer at the western Kenya town of Eldoret.
The government
announcement will be regarded as a first victory by environmentalists
here and abroad who have written letters of protest to the government.
For the Ogiek
community it will mean hearing of another case that has been dragging
at the High Court for years over their right to live in the Mau
Forest.
Although
the government insists that it wanted to settle "the landless,"
environmentalists argue that the government is not sincere and
that the said landless should be settled elsewhere but not in
forestlands.
"We want
a list of the landless," says environmentalist Prof. Wangari Maathai
who has been visiting churches countrywide collecting signatures.
The Ogiek
fear that this will be an invasion of their forest bases.
"As a small
community we have genuine fears that we will be at the mercy of
the invading landless who will destroy this forest," said Joseph
Towett, a spokesman of the Ogiek community.
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