‘We are our land’—Ogiek of Mount Elgon, Kenya: securing community tenure as the key enabling condition for sustaining community lands

Abstract

We outline how securing the community tenure rights of forest peoples can create a rapid, rights-based route to the effective and sustainable conservation of their forests. We draw on the different skillsets and experiences of the authors (long-term fieldwork, mapping and monitoring, and a lifetime of experience) to identify the conditions that enable the Ogiek of Chepkitale, Mount Elgon, Kenya, to sustain and be sustained by their lands. We also identify the conditions that drive the disruption of this sustainable relationship through an appropriation of Ogiek resources by external interests that threaten to degrade, alienate and destroy their ecosystem. It is increasingly recognized that securing sustainable conservation outcomes can be best achieved through the deep knowledge, connection and commitment that ancestral communities have regarding their lands. Evidence from Mount Elgon and more broadly shows that Indigenous Peoples are better guardians of their forests than international or state protection agencies. This challenges the idea that evicting forest peoples is the best way to protect forests. Other studies, including those conducted by the Kenyan governmental Taskforce on Illegal Logging, highlight the way Kenyan state agencies such as the Kenya Forest Service have been responsible for the severe depletion of Indigenous forests. We examine how de facto collective community control can enable decisions to be made in line with taking care of community lands over the long term, but also highlight how this ability is under constant threat until and unless national law and practice recognizes the collective tenure rights of such communities.

How can we advance equitable, rights-based conservation?

“…Embracing international law on rights Respecting rights as they are set out in international law is the defining characteristic of a rights-based approach, yet violations of rights in conservation continue. Kenrick et al (2023) and Claridge et al (2023) report on the eviction and exclusion of the Ogiek from their ancestral lands at Mount Elgon and the Mau Forest in Kenya, respectively, by the creation of protected areas. In Cameroon, forest Indigenous Peoples have been dispossessed and displaced by several protected areas (Emini et al, 2023).…”

“…A Whakatane Assessment was carried out at Mount Elgon in 2011 at the request of the Ogiek. This enabled them to enter into new dialogue with the government and others, and contributed to the evidence that informed court rulings (Kenrick et al, 2023). Wider use of the Whakatane Mechanism would be invaluable in moving towards rights-based implementation of the new Biodiversity Framework.…”