Maps, Power, and the Destruction of the Mau Forest in Kenya

Science & Technology Maps, Power, and the Destruction of the Mau Forest in Kenya Jacqueline M. Klopp and Job Kipkosgei Sang Tropical forests, which provide rich resources and criti- Jacqueline Klopp is 1 an assistant professor cal eco-services, are under severe stress. Some theories of international and regarding the causes of this stress emphasize “irreducible public affairs at the complexity,”2 while others point to specific factors, such School of International and Public Affairs at as population pressures or human encroachment through Columbia University. 3 “shifting cultivation.” Deforestation is indeed complex, Dr. Klopp’s research in part because it is linked not only to economic and social focuses on the intersec- tion of development, dynamics at both global and local levels, but also to questions democratization, vio- 4 of power and politics. Nowhere is this more evident than in lence, and corruption. the ongoing struggle over the Mau Forest in Kenya. Spanning 900 km2, the Mau forest is a complex of six- teen contiguous forests and six separated satellite forests. Together, they form a single ecosystem and make up the largest remaining indigenous forest in East Africa. While less is known about this forest than many other East African forests, the Mau forests complex is immensely important, as it serves as a catchment for rivers west of the Great Rift Valley. These rivers in turn feed major lakes in the region, including Lake Nakuru and the trans-boundary lakes of Lake Victoria in the Nile River Basin, Lake Turkana in Kenya and Ethiopia, and Lake Natron in Tanzania and Kenya. Thus, the Mau forest provides critical ecosystem services, not Winter/Spring 2011 [125] MAPS, POWER, AND THE DESTRUCTION OF THE MAU FOREST IN KENYA only for Kenya, but also for the entire interactions, shape the ecological land- region.5 scape. This article will illustrate that one The Mau is also the home of the Ogiek official conservation program (Kenya people, who have lived in the forest Indigenous Forests Conservation hunting and gathering since well before Programme) actually helped to legit- colonial times.6 Surrounding commu- imize the destruction of the forest. nities also use water, firewood, grazing Finally, this article will examine a more areas, food, and medicines from the recent bottom-up mapping process forest. The government and the United involving local forest dwellers and will Nations Environment Programme highlight how these alternative conser- (UNEP), based in Nairobi, claim that vation strategies exemplify new ideas on the forest is critical to Kenya’s tea, how best to manage forests and other tourism, and energy sectors as well.7 common pool resources. One estimate suggests that in the tea sector alone, approximately 35,000 Maps and Power. One key theme jobs and the livelihoods of 50,000 that emerges in the analysis of the Mau small farmers with some 430,000 Forest struggle is the question of who dependents rely on the eco-services of creates and controls forest data, par- the Mau.8 Thus, the destruction of the ticularly maps. Maps are, of course, Mau would have significant cultural, never simply neutral technical instru- social, and economic implications. ments, but throughout history have Little debate exists around the been linked to power dynamics such fact that the Mau forest is massively as colonial conquest. Maps, as human degraded and has undergone substan- creations, reflect not only scientific tial deforestation. Satellite data, a use- data, but the imagination and interests ful tool for monitoring deforestation of those who commission and/or cre- worldwide, shows the damage,9 and ate them as well.12 What is interesting, ground-truthing by the Kenya Forests however, is that current democratic Working Group, UNEP, and the Kenya pressures demand more open access to Wildlife Service confirms it.10 A recent information such as spatial data,13 and government task force report sug- civil society groups are claiming the use gests that in the last fifteen years alone of this satellite imagery and GIS tech- some 107,707 hectares, representing nology to monitor issues such as human approximately 25 percent of the Mau rights and deforestation.14 Still, pre- Complex area, have been converted to cisely because of the “power of maps,” settlements and farmlands.11 governments in many places are overly This paper explores the history of restrictive of satellite data and official political struggles surrounding the Mau large-scale topographical maps needed forest and the role that mapping has for planning, monitoring and inform- played in them. This is essential for ing public policy discussions. navigating the current complex politics There is a growing awareness of the of the Mau forest and to understand- ways that power determines who is able ing the way power, maps, and political to access spatial information and par- mobilization, along with other human ticipate in the use of mapping technolo- [126] Georgetown Journal of International Affairs KLOPP Science&Technology gies. The Open Street Map Foundation, project also failed to bring the Ogiek for example, has undertaken a collab- into discussions and the mapping pro- orative effort to create an editable map cess from the beginning. The map of of the world that is accessible to all.15 indigenous forest boundaries was well- Recently, the Foundation mobilized constructed. The problem lay in the Kenyan communities and completed institutional and power dynamics of an atlas of one of the country’s largest the map-making process, and in the slums, Kibera.16 Usually a large dark way it was subsequently used by pow- area of what appears to be empty space erful actors to appropriate the forest on most street maps of Nairobi, Kibera and marginalize the Ogiek further. In now has an atlas that shows its streets, contrast, a recent participatory three- homes and services. The Mau forest dimensional modeling exercise of one case suggests that whether a map like the part of the Mau forests complex directly Tropical forests, which provide rich resources and critical eco-services, are under severe stress. new atlas of Kibera or the Ogiek model included local Ogiek elders, the tradi- of the Mau becomes a tool of empow- tional conservers of the forest. These erment or a form of dispossession will two contrasting approaches illuminate depend critically on who makes maps, how maps play into power relations and how they make them, and how acces- mobilizations for and against conserva- sible the maps are in open public pro- tion of this critical forest. cesses. Map making cannot be divorced from wider struggles over resources and Historical Background. Starting broader endeavors for democratization when Kenya was under British rule of decision-making. (1895-1963), the region’s main for- In the case of the Mau forest, a ests came under control of the central donor-funded Kenya Indigenous state. Forests originally managed by Forest Conservation Project local communities became the locus (KIFCON) mapped boundaries and of a struggle among a colonial govern- made an inventory of the remaining ment attempting to control access and indigenous forests in Kenya in the introduce modern forestry and con- early 1990s. The project was meant to servation,17 local people who did not protect these forests, but it failed to recognize this right, and settlers and consider the long history of the Mau’s companies eager to gain logging con- incorporation into networks of state cessions. power and patronage, and unwittingly Within this political process, the supplied the rationale for large-scale colonial government started to produce excisions of the forest through its pro- cadastral maps that showed boundar- vision of boundary information. The ies of land appropriated for its own Winter/Spring 2011 [127] MAPS, POWER, AND THE DESTRUCTION OF THE MAU FOREST IN KENYA use.18 The Mau forest became part of of the Environment and Natural this mapping linked to the land appro- Resources. Under the Forest Act at priation process, and parts of the forest the time, the Minister had the power came under colonial state control for to alter boundaries but was required various purposes, including settlement. to publish that intention and a map By 1930, parts of the Mau complex were in the Kenya Gazette. The Gazette is cleared for the establishment of for- written in English and is not easily est plantations and introduced mainly available, particularly to those living in exotic species. Throughout this period, and around the forest. To make the the colonial government refused to rec- the excision legal, the area needed to ognize the claims of the Ogiek people to be surveyed, a boundary plan drawn the forest and argued that the ultimate up, and approval granted by the Chief way to deal with them would be assimi- Conservator of Forests. If objections lation into other communities.19 The were not raised after 28 days of notice Ogiek were spread out across Kenya’s in the Gazette, the land was no longer forests, but they did not fit neatly into considered protected forest. ethnic “reserves” that the colonial gov- Since the Minister of the Maps, as human creations, reflect not only scientific data, but the imagination and interests of those who commission them as well. ernment created to contain Africans in Environment was a presidential well-defined territories and to protect appointment, the President and his land expropriated for white settlers.20 associates could alter legal boundaries While the Ogiek had interacted with— of forests without informing the rel- and at times assimilated into—the dif- evant forestry officials. This made deci- ferent communities neighboring the sions over forest excisions susceptible to forest,21 they resisted this policy and the politics of patronage and rendered continued to live in the forest and claim foresters “helpless when a logger [or rights to it.

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