The Kenya Forest Services has just triggered a fresh controversy for the Kenya Kwanza administration by unilaterally taking control of the 93-year-old Karura Forest.
Legitimate public concern now exists and interest is mounting around who the vested interests threatening one of Kenya’s most cherished public spaces once more.
Like a classic Gen Z social media call, Kenya Forest Services abruptly “occupied” and took control of Karura Forest gate collections, requiring payments to be paid through the controversial e-Citizen platform on August 28.
Without consulting Friends of Karura Forest (FKF) or visitors, they also raised entry fees to cover new VAT and e-citizen charges.
The FKF volunteers, 120 staff and ten community groups of who have co-managed the forest for over 15 years cried foul. The action undermines a binding 20-year-old KFS and FKF memorandum. At first glance, the dispute between KFS and FKF/CFA appears to be who manages the forest’s annual revenue of Sh245 million. At its core, it’s a struggle over who controls the forest’s future.
Karura Forest is one of Kenya’s most popular public forests. Despite hosting over 70,000 domestic visitors and tourists monthly, most don’t know its history. People’s historian Doug Kiereini tells this story well.
The forest was once occupied by the indigenous Ogiek people and cattle-herding Maasai before Gikuyu held cultural rituals there. Our Kenya Land and Freedom and Mau Mau freedom fighters hid and strategised there. The biggest civic battle for Karura Forest happened in the late 1980s, when the KANU regime began secretly allocating forest land to politically connected private companies.
Led by the late laureate Wangari Maathai, public resistance grew, prompting the United Nations Environment Programme to threaten relocating from Nairobi. The government eventually backed down.
It was these and other battles to conserve Kenya’s forests that led to an amended Forest Act in 2005, the provision for Community Forest Associations (CFA) to co-manage forest resources with the Kenya Forest Services and the establishment of the Friends of Karura Forest in 2009.
Karura Forest was declared protected land in 1901. It spans 1,063 hectares and alongside Ngong Forest remains one of Nairobi’s key water towers. It supports biodiversity and helps convert carbon dioxide into oxygen for us all to breathe. It is easily, one of the city’s favourite spaces to walk and play.
For at least a decade, Karura has been known for its safety, serenity and partnership between KFS and FKF. To the outsider, it is still unclear why now, KFS has disrupted the 20-year agreement with FKF so abruptly.
Is it linked to the court ruling two weeks before that blocked the KFS from approving 51 acres of Karura Forest for the Sh38 billion Kiambu road expansion project due to lack of public participation and an environmental impact licence? Or is it connected to commercial interests who have sought several times to encroach on the forest’s beauty for private profit?
As the nation awaits the September 22 court hearing filed by the Friends of Karura Forest, public opinion is clear. Gate sales have dipped in protest.
Several tour operators and residents’ associations including Parklands, Gigiri Road, Hill View, Kunde Road, Kitisuru, Lakeview Estate, Mitini Estate, New Muthaiga, Peponi Road, the Rosslyn association, and Spring Valley have called for the forest to be restored to FKF.
With 800 UN staff and their families set to relocate to Gigiri, the international community remains oddly silent. Attacking one of Nairobi’s key attractions now raises the question.
Is the state safeguarding public space or allowing others to chase profit from the expected boom? The silence from the Presidency and Environment CS is also deafening. Will they wait until this becomes another mass grievance and international scandal before acting?
A decade ago, I learned about “grabbiosis”, the disease of greed enabled by the silence of the powerful. Karura Forest isn’t about profit or politics, it belongs to the people.
Once again, like Prof Maathai, we are called to #BeAHummingBird, act and protect it for future generations. Will you?
