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ALERT: AGAIN FOREST DEFENDER
ARRESTED IN KENYA !
Chairman of Sagana Wildlife
Protection Self Help Group, Mr Gerald Ngatia, was arrested !
PLEASE LAUNCH INTERNATIONAL
PROTEST AND DEMAND IMMEDIATE STOP OF HARASSMENT !
Several High Court Rulings
stopped forest excision - but state executive ignores order !
To protect 30.000 acres of their
ancestral Eastern Mau Forest members of the Ogiek community were
granted leave to apply for orders of judical writ of command to
squash the Minister's Gazette Notice. The attempt to excise
Eastern Mau Forests was seen by the judge in particular as a
blatant violation of a High Court order already in force.
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Monday, March 19, 2001
State ignores directive on
forests
By MUCHEMI WACHIRA
Surveyors were busy demarcating
Hombe Forest in Mt Kenya yesterday despite a ruling by the High
Court stopping the government from excising 167,000 acres of
forest land.
The High Court sitting in Eldoret
ordered Mr Nyenze last Thursday to stop hiving off forest land in
Rift Valley and Central provinces.
Yesterday, however, surveyors
continued to survey the Hombe Forest at the foot of Mount Kenya,
with armed police from Kiamariga Police Station keeping guard.
All the beacons marking the
boundaries that residents of the neighbouring Sagana Settlement
Scheme uprooted have been re-erected. They replaced them with
branches of cedar trees.
Lady Justice Roselyne Nambuye
suspended the minister’s legal notices in the Kenya Gazette of
February 16 following an application filed under a certificate of
urgency by environmental advocate Nixon Sifuna.
Police also arrested the chairman
of Sagana Wildlife Protection Self Help Group, Mr Gerald Ngatia,
who led the residents in uprooting the beacons and chasing
surveyors out of the forest. He was arrested on Friday and
released after two hours of interrogation at Kiganjo Police
Station. He also recorded a statement and was ordered to report to
the station today.
The surveyors arrived in three
government vehicles yesterday – two Land Rovers and a Suzuki.
Following Mr Sifuna’s application,
the Eastern Mau, South Western Mau, Western Mau Nakuru, Nabkoi, Mt
Kenya, Marmanet, Northern Tinderet, Mt Londian, South Nandi, Molo
and Kapsaret Forests will remain the property of the State until a
case to be filed in two weeks’ time is determined by the same
court in Eldoret.
Meanwhile, tension has gripped
Hombe Forest as more than 600 squatters have threatened to silence
those opposing the allocations. Squatter families that have been
residing by the roadside after the government evicted them from Mt
Kenya and Aberdare forests in 1989 said those demanding a halt to
the surveying of the forests are insensitive to their plight.
Led by Mr James Maina, the
squatters threatened to unleash terror on farmers at Sagana
Settlement Scheme who are opposed to the allocation. They staged a
demonstration in Karatina Town recently. “When we lived in the
forest, there was no logging and the forest was safe from
environmental destruction,” the squatters argued. “We know
where the water catchment areas are and no one can tamper with
them.”
At the same time, Green Belt
Movement Coordinator Wangari Maathai has vowed to continue
collecting signatures for her petition seeking to stop Environment
Minister Francis Nyenze carrying out the excision of forests in
Rift Valley and Central provinces. She has collected 32,000
signatures so far. She was speaking at St Luke’s Anglican Church
in Nairobi yesterday.
On Saturday, the Catholic Church
challenged the government to name the squatters it proposes to
settle on forest land. Archbishop Ndingi Mwana a’Nzeki said the
State had a responsibility to protect citizens and provide
services to them in a transparent manner.
The High Court in Eldoret last week
stopped Environment Minister Francis Nyenze from excising forests
in Rift Valley and Central Provinces.
The Eastern Mau, South Western Mau,
Western Mau, Nakuru, Nabkoi, Mt Kenya Marmanet, Northern Tinderet,
Mt Londiani, South Nandi, Molo and Kapsaret forests will remain
state property until a case to be filed in two weeks’ time
is determined.
-----------------------------
Saturday, March 17, 2001
Another blow to Nyenze
By HANNAH GAKUO and PAMELA
CHEPKEMEI
Another High Court judge yesterday
stopped Environment Minister Francis Nyenze from excising forests.
High Court Judge John Osiemo,
sitting in Nairobi, temporarily stopped Mr Nyenze from excising
Eastern Mau Forest in the Rift Valley.
On Thursday, Eldoret’s Lady
Justice Roselyne Nambuye suspended Mr Nyenze’s legal notices for
de-gazettement from taking effect in the Rift Valley and Central
Provinces. The order had been published in the Kenya Gazette of
February 16.
Mr Justice Osiemo’s orders were
issued following an application by 22 members of the Ogiek
community residing in the Eastern Mau Forest of Nakuru District,
through lawyer Kathurima M’Inoti.
They claim that the degazettement
notices were a blatant violation of a court order issued in 1997,
stopping further allocation .
The judge directed the applicants
to file the substantive application within 21 days.
Mr Nyenze and the Commissioner of
Lands were yesterday served with Lady Justice Nambuye’s order
stopping the excisions in the Rift Valley and Central Provinces.
The order was served on the two
government officials by Mr Kipkorir arap Menjo, Mr Kipketer Meli
and Mr Sammy Muter, on behalf of an environmental advocate Nixon
Sifuna.
The order was received on behalf of
the minister by Mr Kinuthia Mbugua, the Deputy Secretary in the
ministry.
Mr Menjo is a Ford-K activist, Mr
Meli works for the Centre for Human Rights and Democracy and Mr
Muter for the National Convention Executive Council.
An assistant Commissioner of Lands,
Mr Zablon Mabea, received the order on behalf of his boss, Mr
Sammy Mwita, at Ardhi House, the Ministry of Lands headquarters.
Following the orders, Eastern Mau,
South Western Mau, Western Mau, Nakuru, Nabkoi, Mt Kenya, Marmanet,
Northern Tinderet, Mt Londiani, South Nandi, Molo and Kapsaret
Forests will remain State property until the substantive case to
be filed in three weeks is determined.
Mr Nyenze and Mr Mwita will be
defendants in the case, while Mr Sifuna will be the defence lawyer.
Justice Nambuye also declared that
Mr Sifuna was free to apply for an order to prohibit the
Government from degazetting, excising, ceasing, altering,
diminishing, alienating, clearing or allocating to any private
developer the 12 forests.
The Commissioner of Lands was also
restrained from registering or issuing title deeds for land
allocated in any of the forests pending the hearing. The forest
land was reportedly allocated to squatters.
In his application, Mr Sifuna said
the gazette notices did not state the reasons for the intended
excisions.
-------------------------
Kenyan High Court blocks forest
destruction
KENYA: March 16, 2001
NAIROBI - A Kenyan High Court on
Thursday granted local environmentalists an injunction to prevent
authorities allowing forests to be cleared, a television station
reported.
“The forests that were to be
degazetted and allocated to squatters...will remain state property
until a case filed against the minister for environment, Francis
Nyenze, is heard and determined,” Nation television said.
Nyenze last month gave a 28-day
notice of intent to allocate 68,000 hectares (167,000 acres) of
forest land for settlement in locations around Mount Kenya, in the
Rift Valley and in Western Kenya.
The government says the land is
already occupied by squatters and that it is only formalising
their settlement.
“Most of what we are excising is
not forest, the forest was cleared a long time ago,” Nyenze said
on Thursday.
But environmentalists say the move
is at odds with government policy.
“We are saying it is colliding
with the Environment Act, and our environmental policy,” said
James Kamula, a member of the Kenya Forests Working Group.
The group yesterday handed a
petition against the excisions with 28,143 signatures to the
ministry ahead of a deadline for objections set by the government.
The minister has set up a committee
to study all the views presented to him on the issue before making
a final decision.
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
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