Kenya Says the Mau Forest Evictions Are Finally Finished
KENYA · SOCIETY
Key Facts
—The announcement: President William Ruto said the Mau evictions chapter is now closed, speaking in Narok South on 26 August 2026.
—The payment: He said 13,000 evictees have each received Sh200,000, a total of Sh2.6 billion.
—Earlier rounds: An earlier group of about 2,000 families received a smaller per-household sum, though accounts of the amount differ.
—The forest: The Mau is Kenya’s largest closed-canopy forest and the source of rivers feeding Lake Victoria and the Maasai Mara.
—Why people were removed: Successive governments cleared settlement from the forest, in phases beginning in 2004 and resuming in 2018.
—A separate case: Reparations owed to the Ogiek community under African Court rulings are a different matter and remain unpaid.
Kenya’s president has declared the Mau Forest evictions closed, saying 13,000 people removed from the forest have each been paid Sh200,000. The announcement draws a line under a displacement that began more than twenty years ago.
What the Mau Forest evictions announcement said
William Ruto made the statement on 26 August in Narok South, on the second day of a tour of Narok County.
He said this was the final phase, and that everyone who left the forest would receive their Sh200,000 and be able to make their own arrangements.
At 13,000 recipients the total comes to Sh2.6 billion.
He added that the forest has been secured by title and that parts of it will be fenced.
Why the Mau matters so much to Kenya
The Mau is the country’s largest closed-canopy forest, one whose treetops form an unbroken cover, and its most important water tower.
Rivers rising there feed Lake Victoria, the Maasai Mara and the lakes of the Rift Valley, which is why the forest’s condition is an economic question as well as an ecological one.
Encroachment and settlement inside the forest threatened those catchments, and that has been the stated reason for removing people since the beginning.
It has also been one of the most politically charged questions in Kenyan public life, cutting across community, party and constituency.
Tea estates, tourism and hydropower all depend on rivers that begin under its canopy.
That is why the forest’s protection has survived changes of government that altered almost everything else.
A displacement that ran for two decades
The government first moved to reclaim the land in 2004, and rights groups recorded evictions affecting more than 100,000 people before a court order halted the process.
Officials say the reclaimed land on the Narok side had been settled by more than 150,000 people over the decades.
With court authorisation the operation restarted in 2018, targeting the roughly 50,000 people who remained, in two waves across 2018 and late 2019.
Human Rights Watch documented police violence, houses burned and at least nine deaths during the 2018 round.
Compensation has been promised in stages across successive administrations, which is part of why each new announcement is met with scepticism.
Families have been waiting long enough to have heard several versions of this news.
The numbers deserve a second look
Kenyan outlets reporting the same speech gave different figures for what an earlier group of about 2,000 families received, one saying Sh300,000 and another Sh350,000.
A commitment announced in March 2026 referred to 12,000 further evictees rather than 13,000.
Neither report says when the Sh2.6 billion was actually disbursed, over what period or through which channel.
Until that paper trail is public, the payment is best understood as a presidential statement rather than a documented transfer.
None of this means the payments did not happen.
It means the public record is currently a speech rather than an audited disbursement, and the two are not the same thing.
What this is not
These payments are not the reparations owed to the Ogiek, and the two should not be confused.
The Ogiek are an indigenous community of the Mau whose case has run separately before the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights in Arusha.
That court found in 2017 that Kenya had violated their rights, and in 2022 ordered restitution of ancestral land, collective title and compensation.
In December 2025 the same court found that none of the ordered compensation had been paid, that titling was incomplete and that the required consultations had not begun.
The distinction is not academic. One is a domestic compensation scheme; the other is a binding international judgment that remains unimplemented.
Conflating them would credit Kenya with settling an obligation it has not settled.
A chapter closed, or filed away
For families who spent years in camps, a payment that arrives is worth more than a principle that does not.
Whether Sh200,000 is enough to rebuild a life somewhere else is a harder question, and one the announcement does not address.
Displaced families were marching towards Nairobi as recently as February this year, saying earlier promises had not been honoured.
The forest, meanwhile, gets its fence, and the rivers that depend on it get a little more time.
Narok’s governor has previously urged that all verified evictees be paid and warned against mismanagement of the funds.
Rights groups have also questioned how some of the removals were carried out.
For now the announcement stands as the clearest official statement yet that the removals are finished.
Whether it also ends the litigation and the marches is a separate question.
Frequently asked questions
How much were Mau Forest evictees paid?
President William Ruto said 13,000 evictees each received Sh200,000, a total of Sh2.6 billion. Neither of the main reports specifies when the money was disbursed.
Why were people evicted from the Mau Forest?
Successive Kenyan governments cleared settlement from the forest to protect its catchments. The Mau is Kenya’s largest water tower, feeding Lake Victoria and the Maasai Mara.
When did the Mau evictions take place?
The first phase began in 2004 and continued into 2006. A second phase ran with court authorisation across 2018 and late 2019.
Is this the same as the Ogiek compensation case?
No. The Ogiek case is separate, decided by the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, which found in December 2025 that Kenya had not paid the compensation it ordered in 2022.
Sources
Citizen Digital: Gov’t releases Ksh.2.6B to 13,000 families evicted from Mau Forest · Capital FM via AllAfrica: Ruto declares Mau evictions chapter closed · African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights: Ogiek compliance decision · Human Rights Watch via ReliefWeb: Mau Forest evictees’ plight
Connected Coverage
Land, water and who gets to live on it recur across our Africa coverage, from Ghana’s loss of forest reserves to illegal mining to the African forest investment roundtable in Lagos.
This article was produced by The Rio Times’ automated newsroom system. How we use AI · Report an error
Part of our ongoing coverage
Africa: The New Scramble — the great-power contest over the continent.
Read More from The Rio Times