Reclaiming Community Lands - Makes Community Possible
EMBOBUT FOREST, KENYA
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4353 MILES
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PORTOBELLO
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Singing is the Rejuvenation of Our Struggles for Our Lands - Elias Kimaiyo
The Sengwer women dancing and singing in Elias’ photo “is the rejuvenation of our struggles for our lands.” Elias continues: “I took this photo of women visiting the late Robert Kirotich's wife, at his home where he had been living, near to Embobut Forest. They were singing encouragement songs and solidarity to her as they presented the presents they brought. They sing to her to wear the shoes of her husband and continue the good cause of looking after her children and joining women and community in fighting for our land rights."
The women were visiting the wife of Robert Kirotitch who was killed by Kenya Forest Service (KFS) as he was peacefully going about his everyday life on Sengwer commuity lands. The Sengwer are peacefully trying to resist the KFS who are seeking to evict them from their ancestral lands. The excuse given by supposed ‘conservationists’ across Africa - whether KFS, WWF, WCS, UNDP, IUCN or UNESCO - is that ancestral communities have to be forcibly evicted from their lands so that their forests will be protected. In reality these communities care deeply for their forest lands, and the impersonal institutions that evict them are corrupted by their own violence and appropriation, leasing up the devastation of such lands.
The Sengwer women dancing and singing in Elias’ photo “is the rejuvenation of our struggles for our lands.” Elias continues: “I took this photo of women visiting the late Robert Kirotich's wife, at his home where he had been living, near to Embobut Forest. They were singing encouragement songs and solidarity to her as they presented the presents they brought. They sing to her to wear the shoes of her husband and continue the good cause of looking after her children and joining women and community in fighting for our land rights."
The women were visiting the wife of Robert Kirotitch who was killed by Kenya Forest Service (KFS) as he was peacefully going about his everyday life on Sengwer commuity lands. The Sengwer are peacefully trying to resist the KFS who are seeking to evict them from their ancestral lands. The excuse given by supposed ‘conservationists’ across Africa - whether KFS, WWF, WCS, UNDP, IUCN or UNESCO - is that ancestral communities have to be forcibly evicted from their lands so that their forests will be protected. In reality these communities care deeply for their forest lands, and the impersonal institutions that evict them are corrupted by their own violence and appropriation, leasing up the devastation of such lands.