After repeated delays, the Ogiek will have one of their legal cases heard on October 1, 2002. Government officials originally ordered the Ogiek out of their ancestral lands based on Kenya’s Forest Act, citing the Mau’s status as an environmentally protected zone. Recently, the government issued a notice removing the Mau forest from Forest Act protection, a move intended to open the area to settlement by other tribes in the region. The hearing in October will address the removal of the forest’s protected status. Meanwhile, the government continues to allow logging in the forest. A hearing scheduled for July 23 was postponed because of the judge’s absence, and the new date was agreed upon by both sides. Their separate suit to prevent the Kenyan government from evicting them from the Mau forest has been tied up in the courts since 1997.
