Kenya’s Mau Forest: Indigenous and wildlife at risk

Both the indigenous Ogiek people and hundreds of species of wildlife are threatened by deforestation and drought.

A battle is under way for the survival of the largest native forest in East Africa.

Since the British colonial period in Kenya, swaths of the Mau Forest have been cleared for plantations and environmentalists say hundreds of species are threatened by the diminishing forest.

Two years ago, the indigenous Ogiek people won the right to return to the forest – their ancestral home – and are trying to restore the ecological balance.

 

Jazeera’s Nicolas Haque has this exclusive report from the Mau Forest, Kenya.