Turkana County and specifically Lodwar town is experiencing massive deforestation and degradation of land resources as a result of extensive forest clearing for agricultural use, recent oil and gas exploration, over-grazing, exploitation of existing forests for fuel wood and construction poles as well as the increased population that has scrambled for the limited land. Oil and gas exploration activities by foreign investors on a number of regions of the county for close to four years now without environment-friendly exploration practices has led to more destruction of the already affected environment, recurrent drought and famine, deforestation, environmental degradation and grave health concerns that threaten the survival of the indigenous flora and fauna. Renewable natural resources including land, water, forests and trees as well as other forms of biodiversity, which meet the basic human needs for food, water, clothing and shelter, have now deteriorated to a low level of productivity. There is no debate that land administration and land rights delivery in Turkana County have not met the expectations of the ordinary Kenyan. Various civil societies, researchers, academics, environmental and human rights activists have expressed their concerns regarding the adverse impact of large-scale land acquisitions by both local and foreign investors that primarily target profits and energy security of their home markets without taking into consideration the concomitant side-effects that come with the search for valuable resources and minerals. Fertile lands lose the trees and the topsoil, natural habitats and rivers are rendered barren as a result of exposition to chemicals latent in the waste-products of oil and gas exploration and extraction while rivers and lakes that survive are likely to be poisoned by toxic materials and become undrinkable and a health hazard. The national and county governments should protect the national reserves and lands that are not utilized at present which will inevitably be used due to population explosion and scarcity of arable lands. The authorities should examine the political dynamics of land property relations and changes in these relations, and give particular attention to the overriding objective of the laws relating to land management and allocation. More importantly, there is need to harmonize land laws in Kenya and work towards a comprehensive land use policy. The current land grab and improper allocation of land in Turkana will lead to changes in land property relations favoring the (re)concentration of wealth and power and thus give rise to the dispossession and displacement of smallholders, indigenous peoples and the poor in general. Corruption or misuse of political powers and manipulation of markets results in the exclusion of some individuals or groups from competing in property acquisition and exchanges. Gaps in legal regimes include insecure resource rights, inaccessible registration procedures, compensation limited to loss of improvements like crops and trees and legislative gaps that often undermine the position of local inhabitants. These uncontrolled arbitrary power practices on the part of the local authorities as provided for by the Trust Land Act and other auxiliary legislations can even be worse where land transfers are made without prior mapping and demarcation of protected forests and wildlife, and where registration and the issuance of land-holding certificates to smallholder indigenous pastoralists have not yet been made. In the absence of detailed functional land administration laws in the federal counties of the Republic of Kenya, it is not clear how the land holding rights given to indigenous communities under the Constitution is being implemented within these federal counties since leasehold systems in different African countries have been found to be less vulnerable to land grabs as compared to customary holdings. In jurisdictions where there is clarity as to the scope of rural land use rights and, most importantly, where independent courts are the only organs that determine the termination of land use rights, leaseholds are not substantially superior to community rights as evident in Turkana County with regard to the security and tenure against eviction. In fact, private ownership can also be exposed to arbitrary expropriation in the absence of effective judicial protection. Land grabs and community disempowerment occur through a promise of a ‘better future’ under the guise of jobs, with the argument that the indigenous community is currently only just surviving from the ‘unproductive land’ and that they stand to earn regular benefits if they give up the land for development.” Generally, companies purchase or lease the land from the government. However, governments often either appropriate land or force members of minority or indigenous communities to sell their land without involving the indigenous host community in the process of determining whether or not prospecting licenses should be given to the oil company. Until recently, the government of Kenya did not have a National Land Policy and this is what gave rise to weak land administration and management framework. Many efforts in the past to, for instance, repossess illegally/irregularly acquired public land as recommended by the Ndung’u Commission as well as attempts by the Kenya Anti- Corruption Commission to repossess such lands, have been met with legal hurdles on grounds of sanctity of first registration of title, irrespective of how the title is obtained. This is the mischief that the new land laws seek to remedy. The new Constitution and the National Land Policy take cognizance of these failures of the land management system and call for new legislation to be put in place to question the legality of titles granted through allocation of public land, and take corrective measures as appropriate. The “Declaration on land issues and challenges in Africa” adopted in July 2009 by the Heads of State of the African Union (AU) stresses the need for “strong systems of land governance that recognize the diversity and complexity of the systems under which land and related resources are held, managed and used.” The land resource has continued to play a significant role in the socio-economic and political development of the country and therefore, its ownership, allocation, distribution and utilization is of great concern to most Kenyans.
Posted on: Sat, 22 Jun 2013 13:42:37 +0000
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