How a Kenyan community displaced for conservation now leads the effort

Luka Kiraton, 64, vividly remembers getting evicted from his home in 2013. He said the gory sight of police and forest guards demolishing and setting ablaze his and hundreds of other houses belonging to the Sengwer people inside Embobut Forest in Kenya still hurts as badly as it did over a decade ago. He recalled hiding in the forest and seeing the police and forest guards rummaging through the bushes near his homestead to find household items such as cooking pots and washing basins, which they had hidden away in a bid to save them from the arson. The police and forest guards threw them all in the raging fires of what used to be his mud-walled and grass-thatched huts. The Sengwer are a marginalized Indigenous hunter-gatherer community with a population of about 10,000 people living in western Kenya. They were evicted from the forest to make way for carbon offset schemes and conservation projects funded by multinational organizations, including the World Bank and European Union. The government said the evictions were meant to protect the Cherangany Forest Water Tower — a critical watershed made up of 13 forest blocks, including Embobut — from encroachers involved in logging, farming, and illegal land fencing. With nowhere to go after the evictions, some Sengwer families stayed with friends or abandoned farm stores outside the forest in neighboring hamlets. But would still go back to the forest — hiding from the forest guards — to graze and milk their livestock. Most survived by working farm jobs like planting, weeding, and harvesting potatoes. Now, years later, the Sengwer are using their indigenous knowledge to propagate native tree seedlings. From nurseries on the edge of Embobut Forest, the community sells seedlings to an ambitious conservation project that seeks to restore degraded forests and protect vital water resources. As forest dwellers, the Sengwer have held on to their indigenous knowledge, including in environmental sustainability. According to Elias Kimaiyo, a Sengwer human rights defender, this knowledge is integral in the sourcing and propagating of indigenous tree seedlings in Embobut Forest. “It is about knowing the correct species of trees and the ecological zones in which they do well,” he said. Unlike exotic trees, indigenous tree seedlings are hard to come by in Kenya. According to the Botanical Gardens Conservation International, “there are more than 1,100 native tree species, 40 of which are endemic. More than ten percent (120) of Kenya’s tree species are threatened with extinction.” Globally, about 30% of tree species are threatened with extinction, according to the Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry. The Sengwer established an indigenous tree propagation nursery in 2023 in a private farm they leased on the edge of the forest. Every Tuesday, they meet to scour the forest floor for seedlings, which they bring back to the nursery for planting in plastic tubes stuffed with soil. When Devex visited the nursery, 12 species of indigenous tree seedlings, including the African redwood and rosewood, thrived in neat rows. “When we started the first nursery, we propagated 30,000 seedlings, which we sold to the Water Fund,” Kiraton said. Timothy Kiprop, a member of the group, said he is confident that no one else has the species of seedlings they have in the numbers they have. “We are yet to fill up this land we leased. There is space for more,” he said. Seeing the benefits, the group asked the Kenya Forest Service for land inside the forest to expand propagation. It was a leap of faith given their history of evictions, but the agency granted their request, allocating four acres for the nursery. The Eldoret-Iten Water Fund, a conservation initiative led by The Nature Conservancy alongside the Eldoret Water and Sanitation Company and other partners, is the community’s largest buyer. It aims to help 40,000 farmers plant trees across 120,000 hectares in western Kenya. As part of its project, Eldoret-Iten Water Fund is distributing tree seedlings — primarily supplied by the Sengwer — to farmers in a bid to restore wetlands and ensure the water users downstream continue to get water. Kimaiyo said their seedlings are also helping to conserve the Cherangany Forest Water Tower, which is one of the five main water sources in Kenya. “Embobut Forest is part of a water tower, and without planting more indigenous trees and planting it correctly, then we will lose Cherangany Hills as a water tower,” he explained. He added that without the trees, springs would dry up. The project has also enabled the Sengwer community — many of whom have struggled financially since their eviction — to earn an income by applying their indigenous knowledge. “One advantage is that we pay those who are working, and also, they [Water Fund] are buying seedlings from us as well. You know, that is something I can say that for the first time we have benefited,” said Kimaiyo. The group acknowledged that the Eldoret-Water Fund may wind up in a few years. As a result, in addition to looking out for support from other partners, including government projects, they are working towards sustainability. “We have been setting aside a certain percentage of our proceeds so that in case Eldoret-Iten Water Fund and the Nature Conservancy exits, then we will be able to continue producing seedlings,” Kimaiyo said.