ACTION ALERT

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FOREST CONSERVATION NEWS TODAY

Kenya’s Ecosystems on the Edge

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Forest Networking a Project of Forests.org, Inc.

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01/25/02

OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY by Forests.org

Kenya’s ecosystems are on the edge – unable to continue providing

water, plant materials and other basic human needs to its burgeoning

population. Forests remain on less than two percent of Kenya’s land,

under protected status as a national resource. In a country plagued

by drought, the forests are critical for water conservation. They are

also home to indigenous peoples that live by hunting game and

gathering food plants, herbs, and honey within the forests.

In a bid for votes, the Kenyan government has rescinded protected

status from 4 percent of the remaining forests, claiming that the

territory is needed to open settlements for the country’s many

landless people. It is critical that Kenya’s forests be preserved and

restored if continued and recurrent droughts are to be averted, and

the country is to have a future. Please send polite letters to

Kenya’s president and Minister of the Environment. Urge them to

revoke the forest excisions announced on October 19, 2001. Following

is yet another superb action alert from the Global Response.

g.b.

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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:

Title: GR Action #1/02 Protect Forests and Indigenous

People / Kenya

Source: Global Response

Date: January 17, 2002

Dear Members of Global Response's "Quick Response Network:"

"Kenya has a critical shortage of tree cover. According to experts,

at least 10 percent of the land needs tree cover to ensure a reliable

water supply. While neighbouring Tanzania has 36 percent, Kenya has

1.7 percent.

"A severe drought last year brought the country to its knees. Four

milion people became dependent on food aid as reservoirs emptied,

causing severe water and electricity rationing. The vanishing forest

cover was an important factor."

These paragraphs from an article in yesterday's The Independent (16

January 2002), illustrate the critical importance of preserving

Kenya's remaining forests. Yet the Moi government recently announced

its decision to log some of the forests most critical to water

conservation.

Kenyan environmental organizations and the indigenous Ogiek people

asked Global Response to raise an international outcry against the

logging and colonization scheme that could have disastrous and far-

reaching consequences in East Africa. Please add your voice to this

worldwide appeal to protect Kenya's forests and indigenous peoples. -

Paula Palmer

GLOBAL RESPONSE ACTION ALERT #1/02

PROTECT FORESTS AND INDIGENOUS PEOPLES / KENYA

Jan-Feb 2002

“If we do not protect our remaining forests, Kenya will become

progressively thirstier, hungrier, uglier and poorer. The forest

excisions are like an axe hanging over the future of our country.”

-- Kenya Forests Working Group

Forests remain on less than two percent of Kenya’s land, under

protected status as a national resource. In a country plagued by

drought, the forests are critical for water conservation. They are

also home to indigenous peoples that live by hunting game and

gathering food plants, herbs, and honey within the forests.

In a bid for votes, the Kenyan government has rescinded protected

status from 4 percent of the remaining forests, claiming that the

territory is needed to open settlements for the country’s many

landless people. Ironically and tragically, the indigenous Ogiek

people will lose much of their traditional forest territory if this

scheme goes forward. The major beneficiaries will be politically

connected people and loggers as well as settlers from other regions of

the country. Already three powerful logging companies – Pan African

Paper Mills, Raiply Timber and Timsales Ltd – are clearing the newly

opened forest tracts.

Hardest hit are the Mau and Mt. Kenya forests, known as two of

the country’s five “water towers.” A coalition of environmental

organizations called the Kenya Forests Working Group warns that

cutting of the Mau Forest will significantly reduce the ability of the

forest ecosystem to cope with drought. Although the logging will bring

more land under cultivation, it will reduce the productivity of

current farms and tea plantations. Microclimates critical to

agriculture are already suffering negative effects from deforestation.

Forest destruction will be a major blow to Kenya’s biological

diversity, since forests harbor 50% of Kenya’s plant species, 40% of

mammal species, 35% of butterfly species and 30% of bird species – all

on only two percent of the land mass.

Logging in the Mau Forest will have a devastating impact on water

quality and level in Lake Nakuru, home to the world’s largest

concentration of flamingoes. Protected under international law (Ramsar

Convention), Lake Nakuru may lose its economic value as Kenya’s second

most visited tourist site.

The survival of the Ogiek people depends on their continued access to

the mountainous Mau Forests, where they have lived as hunters and

gatherers from time immemorial. Governments since colonial times have

tried to evict them from the forest, purportedly to protect the forest

from negative impacts of Ogiek daily life. In fact, Ogiek have always

managed the forest sustainably.

Now the government itself is destroying the forest so that people of

Other ethnicities may settle there. Traditional Ogiek culture will

not survive colonization. The pastoral Maasai, who pasture their

animals in the Mau Forest during the dry seasons, will also be

affected.

The Ogiek people and environmental organizations are challenging the

forest destruction edict in the courts and seeking international

citizen support. Already the conservation group Action for Endangered

Species has withdrawn an environmental award that Kenya was to receive

for its stand last year against resumption of the global trade in

ivory.

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The Ogiek

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The Ogiek (AUG-ih-eck) are one of the few remaining hunter-gatherer

peoples of East Africa. Numbering around 20,000, they live in the Mau

mountain forest, overlooking Kenya’s Rift Valley. Some Ogiek still

live purely by hunting and gathering, while the majority now also grow

vegetables and keep livestock. They traditionally hunted such animals

as antelope and wild pigs, but this is now generally prohibited. The

Ogiek gather wild plants for food and medicine, and collect honey from

beehives that they make from hollow logs and place in the high

branches of the forest trees. Trees at different heights on the

mountain slopes flower at different seasons, meaning that the Ogiek

can collect honey all year round. Its taste varies according to

when and where it is gathered. This honey plays a central role in

Ogiek society; it is used for food and for brewing beer, as well as

for trade with neighboring peoples outside the forest. (Source:

Survival International)

“Settlement of other people in our midst would mean that the Ogiek

culture would cease. We will be wiped out.”

-- Joseph Towett, Chairman, Ogiek Welfare Council

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REQUESTED ACTION: Please send polite letters to Kenya’s president and

Minister of the Environment. Urge them to revoke the forest excisions

announced on October 19, 2001, for these reasons:

· Kenya’s remaining forests harbor most of the country’s biological

diversity, including half of the plant species.

· Scientists warn that further deforestation in vital water

catchment areas like the Mau Forests will exacerbate drought, lower

crop productivity, alter water quality and level in Lake Nakuru and

affect its flamingo population, described by Sir Peter Scott as “the

world’s greatest bird spectacle.” Negative impacts on the tourism

economy are inevitable.

· Logging and colonization in the Mau Forest threaten the survival

of the Ogiek people, whose rights as traditional hunter-gatherers in

the Mau Forests must be protected.

· The forest excisions violate international agreements including

the African Convention on Conservation of Nature and Natural

Resources, the Convention on Biological Diversity, The United Nations

Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Ramsar Convention, and the

Convention for theProtection of World Cultural and Natural Heritage.

ADDRESSES:

H.E. Daniel Arap Moi, President

Republic of Kenya

Office of the President

P.O. Box 30510

Nairobi

Kenya

FAX: +254-2-210150

Salutation: Your Excellency,

Hon. Joseph J. Kamotho, EGH, MP, Minister

Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources

P.O. Box 30521

Nairobi

Kenya

FAX: +254-2-727622

Salutation: Honorable Minister,

NOTE: POSTAGE FROM THE US IS 80 CENTS. REMEMBER TO WRITE "AIRMAIL" ON

YOUR ENVELOPE.

This Global Response Action Alert was issued at the request of and

with information provided by the Kenya Forests Working Group, Ogiek

Welfare Council, and Survival International. For more information,

please see these

websites:

www.ogiek.org/issues/index.htm

www.survival-international.org

www.mountkenyatrust.com/other_pages/forestexcisions.htm

www.orip.org/

www.getawaytoafrica.com/content/News/01/11/28.01.asp

Contact Kenya Forests Working Group at kfwg@wananchi.com.

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Paula Palmer, Executive Director

Global Response

P.O. Box 7490

Boulder CO 80306

USA

TEL: 303-444-0306

FAX: 303-449-9794

Email: paula@globalresponse.org

Website: www.globalresponse.org

Global Response empowers people of all ages, cultures, and

nationalities to protect the environment by creating partnerships for

effective citizen action. At the request of indigenous peoples and

grassroots organizations, Global Response organizes international

letter-writing campaigns to help communities prevent environmental

destruction. Global Response involves young people as well as adults

in these campaigns, to develop in them the skills for global citizen

cooperation and earth stewardship.

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