Ngumbao Kithi
23 June 2007
Nairobi — The Tana River primate national reserve is no more. A court ruling now bars the Kenya Wildlife Service from interfering with residents of a disputed 11-square-kilometre land in Gwano and Ndera locations of Tana River district to allow the conservation of the red colobus and crested mangabey monkeys.
The order puts to rest a dispute of more than 34 years between KWS and the local county council on the one hand and the residents on the other over who has the right to conserve the rare monkey species said to be endangered.
The residents, in their suit, argued that instead of being evicted from their ancestral land to allow the animals' conservation, they should be allowed to live with them.
The villagers said KWS should not claim to be able to protect the animals better when they (residents) had lived with them since time immemorial. "If there are people who can protect these rare red colobus and crested mangabey monkeys, it's we and not the KWS," they argued.
They said statistics available on the ground showed that since the arrival of KWS in the disputed land, the two species' populations had gone down.
According the ruling delivered by High Court judge J. K. Sergon on February 19, KWS and its agents are barred from evicting any resident of the two locations. The residents should not be obstructed from living and carrying on their daily chores in the disputed land.
Mr Justice Sergon also declared that the villagers are entitled to cultivating their farms without being harassed or obstructed by KWS or their agents. He ordered that all the evicted residents be allowed back.
The court also restrained KWS from interfering with the wildlife at Ndera and Gwano, and ordered it to return animals it may have removed, arguing that the local people know best how to conserve the two endangered monkey species.
The suit was filed by Mr Meza Galana, Mr Michale Gafu Himbae, Mr Ali Dhadho Santor and Mr Athman Hamza, on behalf of the Gwano and Ndera residents.
They said the locations' total population is about 5,000 people.
Some time in 1974, they said, the then district commissioner held a public meeting in the area and announced that the it would be turned into a game reserve. The meeting, they added, was attended by KWS officials and the then county council chairman and clerk.
The officials ordered the residents to leave their ancestral land to allow the establishment of the game reserve. They later learnt that the council had passed a resolution surrendering the land without consulting the residents, they pointed out.
In the past 10 years, the local women have twice stripped before KWS researchers to protest against the land take-over. The action, according to the local Pokomo community, is a curse that may cause problems for the present and future generations.
Mr Abio, the chairman of the Gwano and Ndera Council of Elders (Gasa), and Mr Leonard Gayoye, the secretary of the local conservation forum, say the problem started in 1974. Provincial administration officials, led by the then DC, some councillors and KWS officers met a few residents to discuss the creation of a game reserve.
At the impromptu meeting, the villagers who included councillors opposed the proposal, arguing that it amounted to the loss of their land.
The people's stand
The Government ignored the people's stand and went ahead to establish the reserve. And for quite some time, the residents carried on with their normal lives without interference from either the council or KWS. But in 1991, they noticed strange KWS activities in the area.
Mr Gayoye says game rangers soon arrived, some with guns, and started harassing the people and asking them to leave their farms, arguing that they were living in a game reserve.
A number of people were arrested and charged with trespass. And unable to stand the mistreatment any more, they went to court in 1993, he adds. But despite the suit, the KWS activities intensified after it received a grant of Sh500 million from the World Bank through the Global Environment Facility (GEF) to develop the reserve.
In the deal, GEF recommended that the residents be moved to the nearby Kipini area. But the farmers wrote to the GEF headquarters in Washington DC to say they were opposed to the plan, although some landless people willingly moved to Kipini under the controversial Voluntary Relocation Assistance Unit.
However, after careful consideration, the World Bank withdrew from the project four years ago.
But as the court ruled in favour of the farmers, the people who moved to Kipini are crying foul. Some 200 of the original 247 plots set aside for the first phase of the project have been invaded by squatters, they claim, while the last group to be taken to the new settlement claim they have been dumped in a forest.
The voluntary group secretary Nelson Galana says they preferred to move to Kipini because of the government promise to issue them title deeds and improve the physical infrastructure. "We were promised that Kipini would be transformed into a model city in the middle of nowhere, complete with physical infrastructure, but that never happened," he adds.
According to residents who support the resettlement, the Tana River primate national reserve is a gazetted area and the council cannot reverse the move.
There are also conflicting reports on who the genuine land owners are. Mr Abio says most of the people who moved to Kipini are squatters who did not have land in the reserve.
Another villager, Mr Barisa Abdalla, says that since the arrival of KWS in the forest, there has been a significant reduction of monkey, elephant and rhino populations.
Another, Mzee Komora, says the council did not involve the people in the take-over discussions. "The county council resolution to set up the game reserve resulted in the gazettement in 1976, but not before the locals were given the opportunity to petition the Government as demanded by law," he adds.
Mr Abio says there are more than 3,000 people in both Gwano and Ndera who have refused to move to Kipini and that, with the court ruling in their favour, they are there to stay.
Villagers who refused to be moved say they have community initiatives to conserve the monkeys as their natural resource. "We still insist that the locals who moved to Kipini are not genuine squatters, but individuals who just wish to benefit from this exercise," they add.
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