Mau forest is one of Kenya’s water towers but has now turned into a political gold mine as the government implements an eviction exercise of illegal settlers who had turned the forest into farming land. Even though political leaders from the region have termed the government unfair by evicting the people who claim to have no alternative land to go to, the occupants have no documents to support the occupation of the forest land. The Prime Minister has found himself on a hot spot as he is the one spearheading the evictions and attracted enmity from powerful ethnic Kalenjin politicians from whose community most of occupants come from. Kenya’s forest cover has witnessed a downward trend massively decreasing from 12 percent some years back to a mere less than 2 percent now due to illegal human encroachment. Politics aside, Mau which feeds Lake Victoria and the White Nile, needs to be jealously guarded as an important water source, despite we would not have any good reason whining over climate change if we cannot even protect what we have at the moment.
