SAVING THE SEVENTH WONDER - THE GRAND MAASAI MARA OF KENYA, EAST AFRICA

The debate rages on in Kenya: How do we rid the Mau Forest of the 4,000-odd settlers occupying 25% of this water tower?
The entire Eastern Africa and beyond does well to watch with bated breath because this might very well turn out to be a matter of life and death. Not only in Kenya, but also in north-central Tanzania, Uganda, the Sudan, and Egypt. Rivers emanating deep in the Mau supply the Mara River and Lake Natron, several rivers draining into the lake Victoria and the Nile, not to mention practically all lakes in the Kenyan Rift Valley, save, perhaps, only perhaps, for Lake Bogoria.
The Kenyan politicians are a strange lot. It is beyond most people of average intelligence that anyone can argue against the logic of moving the settlers out of the Mara asap, like, say, yesterday. Ultimately, they are all illegal settlers and, on the basis of natural justice, deserve no compensation at all. Those who were duped into buying the land nonprocedurally exiced from the Mau are in possession of stolen property, and like good honest fellows should be rightly filled with angst and indignation for those who thus conned them. They should be all too willing to point fingers and lead us to the real criminals. on their part, they should be exceedingly penitent, since they have contributed to the rape and denudation of the once resplendent forest teeming with wildlife and beauty, blessing us for non-interference with all manner of permanent rivers with crisp clean life-sustaining water.
Picture the future of Kenya without the Mau Forest. There will be a vast, mostly lifeless near-desert to the south in the place of present-day Maasai Mara game reserve and parts of the Serengeti around Lake Natron. The riverbeds will be a mixture of dust, crocodile and hippo skeletons whose owners died stranded after the supply line dried. No wildlife teeming the vastness, but the odd snake rolling itself over the torrid hot sands in search of a craggy shelter.
How about the Manyatta? These dwelling of the beautiful Maasai people will become abandoned ruins good only for geckos and crickets. Those that survived the many hungers will be dwelling in camps for the internally displaced persons (IDPs). Their young, of course will be part of the dreaded illegal militia terrorizing anyone and everyone.
There is every reason to be very afraid. I read from one columnist in The Standard (Ecosystem, "Water is Life, now please shut up!" - Kipkoech Tanui) that some villagers are already creating little dams on once mighty, killer Ex-Mau river's that are now reduced to rivulets. The grim picture of the Maasai Mara here painted could very easily be replicated many times in may places in our lifetime. Worse still, it will lead to the obliteration of entire communities worse than any genocide in living memory.
All the might and good sense in President Mwai Kibaki, Prime Minister Raila Odinga and all their men and women must come to bear to prevent this eventuality. It is worth every sacrifice. If we can,let us compensate those that it makes sense to compensate on humanitarian grounds; namely, those that realistically lack other options. Can those from whom they bought land donate alternative land voluntarily? If not, can they be compelled to do so? How about those known to be in possession of vast expanses comparable only to provinces in area? If sincere in their public pronouncements of empathy and sincerity in looking for funds to help settle the prospective evictees, they really need look no further than at their own title deeds.
Posterity, the few that may survive by divine grace, will judge us very harshly if we do not do something drastic. We are proving to be much worse for ourselves than the colonial oppressors. There is no record anywhere that they massacred so many in peacetime as we are doing yearly by denying our fellow citizens so primordial right as food. The grimmest of prospects is that we will bury yet more before our turn if we sit back and politic about the Mau Forest. Delay in taking action will lead to the loss of the picturesque Maasai Mara and the lives and livelihoods of many along with it. William Ruto will survive. So will his namesake Isaac and Kutuny, Keter and the Mois. Incidentally, so will Kibaki, Raila, and probably, just probably, me too. Certainly, I speak for the majority.
The time for action is yesterday!
- Alligator Makori, Blogger