Where residents would prefer jail to plundering their forest

It is a forest like no other. And for its uniqueness, it is being used as a case study in conservation efforts, not only in Kenya but in other East African nations.

Mukogodo in Laikipia North District is the only forest in Kenya with no guards, yet it has resources worth millions of shillings and is home to more than 4,000 people.

Driving around the 74,000-acre forest, one comes across wildlife and livestock grazing side by side and dozens of temporary and permanent shelters.

Piles of rotting logs that would make a charcoal trader drool with envy are scattered all over the place but the locals dare not touch them lest they incur the wrath of the elders’ court.

A senior deputy director with the Kenya Forest Service (KFS), Mr Emilio Mugo, said despite spending a fortune hiring guards for other forests in the country, illegal logging was still a major headache.

But not in Mukogodo, where cases of illegal logging or charcoal burning are rare despite the area having one guard whose main preoccupation is to coordinate rescue efforts in case of natural disasters.

“This forest is unique and whenever we go to Uganda or Ethiopia for international conservation conferences, we use it as case study and urge people to visit,” he said recently during a trip to the forest to launch a 10-year integrated management plan.

The plan is targeted at nine districts in line with the new Forest Act, which now gives the community a bigger role in conservation efforts.

However, even before the new Act became law last year, residents of Mukogodo had their own traditional methods of conserving the forest, which has been their means of livelihood for centuries.

How has the community been so successful in conserving the forest?

Historians say the Maasais were pushed into the Dorobo Reserve (now Mukogodo) in 1936 by colonialists who settled in the Laikipia plateau.

Poor people

In the forest the Maasai, who are pastoralists, had to develop suitable economic and political structures to survive.

They had to ensure that every locality had a dry season grazing area with perennial water supply as well as wet season pastures.

Livestock could not be driven to the zoned areas unless a committee of elders gave the nod.