Kenya
Kenya
* Mha = million hectares
Comprehensive forest data is not available for Kenya. While we were able to identify at least 380,000 hectares of forestland as designated for Indigenous Peoples and local communities as of 2007, given the prevalence of customary land tenure in the country, a substantial portion of Kenya’s forestland is likely owned by Indigenous Peoples and local communities. The 2016 Community Land Act provides an avenue for communities to register their lands, and in particular to protect the rights of indigenous and community women. However, as of 2017 the government had not yet passed regulations necessary for the law to be effective. [Source: RRI 2018 (At a Crossroads)]
3.3 million hectares of land were formally recognized as owned by Indigenous Peoples and local communities as of 2015 (or 5.8% of total country area); an additional 210,000 hectares were designated for communities (.37% of total country area), for a total of 6.17% of total country area. [Source: RRI 2015 (A Global Baseline)]
Kenya not yet adopted the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Secure community land rights are an intrinsic component of poverty alleviation goals and the achievement of national and global economic development goals.
Almost a third of the world’s population manages and depends on community-held lands. Land use by rural communities is more sustainable, benefits more people, and generates better environmental outcomes than large-scale plantations and extractive projects. Secure community rights are therefore vital to poverty reduction and sustainable development. [Source: RRI 2017 (Securing Community Land Rights)]
Where Indigenous Peoples and local communities have secure rights, climate outcomes improve: deforestation rates are lower and carbon storage higher.
Globally, Indigenous Peoples and local communities manage at least 17 percent (nearly 300 billion metric tons) of the total carbon stored in the forestlands of assessed countries—a global estimate that is 5 times greater than shown in a previous analysis of aboveground tropical forest carbon, and equivalent to 33 times the global energy emissions of 2017. In Kenya, 0.6 billion metric tons of aboveground, belowground, and soil carbon is stored in forestlands that are legally owned or designated for Indigenous Peoples and local communities. [Source: RRI et al. 2018 (A Global Baseline of Carbon Storage in Collective Lands)]
Indigenous and community women’s land and forest rights are crucial for the achievement of global development goals.
According to a legal analysis of 30 low- and middle-income countries, governments are not respecting indigenous and rural women’s tenure rights and are failing to meet international obligations to do so. Countries reviewed in Africa (11 countries) provide the most consistent affirmation of women’s property rights and greatest recognition of women’s community-level dispute-resolution rights, but they also afford indigenous and community women the weakest community-level inheritance and voting rights. [Source: RRI 2017, Power and Potential]
Of the laws examined in this study, those establishing registered community lands in Kenya contain some of the most detailed protections for women’s membership rights, as they explicitly account for situations of divorce, widowhood, and remarriage. [Source: RRI 2017, Power and Potential]
Insecure land rights can result in conflicts that threaten sustainable + inclusive economic development as well as corporate profits.
According to a case study on tenure conflict conducted in Africa by RRI and TMP Systems, 63% of private sector land and natural resource investment disputes on the continent began when communities were forced to leave their territories. In more than two-thirds of the cases, there was a significant labor stoppage or legal intervention, demonstrating that tenure-related conflicts affect investors financially and significantly on several occasions. [Source: RRI y TMP Systems 2017, Tenure and Investment in Africa]
Insecure land rights are driving conflict, insecurity, and a human rights crisis.
Two land and environment defenders were reported killed in Kenya in 2018. One was a member of the indigenous Sengwer community and was killed during a forced eviction by Embobut Forest Service guards. [Source: Global Witness 2020 (Enemies of the State)]