Our hominin ancestors descended from the canopy and hit the ground running. Bipedalism equipped the species with evolutionary advantages including the use of tools, enhanced cognitive skills, and the capacity for long distance travel. Human history became a record of mass migrations as our species travelled across desert, mountains, and through forests, peopling the continents and occupying the planet’s most remote islands and archipelagos. Then, around six thousand years ago, they started settling down.

The rest was inevitable. What began as the wandering of bands and clans eventually gave way to the mastery over nature and conquests that shaped and reconfigured the modern world. The disruptions of the Second World War and the decolonization that followed completed the world’s present ethno-nationalist map. The post-World II era was a period of state consolidation. Together with decolonization, it conveyed the impression of a sorted-out world map where almost everyone belonged to a territorially-defined place.

This status quo shifted in 1989. Freedom of movement resumed and thirty-four new states came into existence. Although the transnational flows of goods, services, and capital did not extend to labour, events following the neoliberal opening triggered a new wave of population movement. International migration increased by 41 per cent between the turn of the millennium and 2015. Migrants now comprise 3.6 per cent of the global population of 7.96 billion, and they remit some US$720 billion to their home countries.

Africans contributed only a small portion of the increase responsible for the surge, despite perceptions that locate them in the front of the wave. It’s not that they don’t want to move. A recent study reported that 52 per cent of the young Africans questioned are planning to move abroad in the next three years—marking a strong contrast with a survey several years ago that found more than two-thirds of the continent’s young people want to stay put. Their options, however, are limited.

This is in part due to the high numbers of immigrants from other regions who preceded them. Where European migration provided by far the largest number since 1492, Asia provided the largest segment of people who have resettled abroad since 1989. Most migration routes now run from south to north and from east to west. What began as resettlement and labour contracts ended up contributing to the we-are-here-because-you-were-there meme.

The backlash against immigration that is raising barriers to travel and resettlement is not only a Western country problem. The sentiments behind Brexit and Trump’s MAGA xenophobia are to be found in the intolerance for non-indigenous residents in many African countries. South Africa may be the most blatant example, but migrants in neighbouring countries remain vulnerable to political vagaries, as the large number of Kenyans who set up base in newly independent South Sudan discovered. An estimated 1 to 2 million Chinese, many of them contract labourers and small businessmen, have migrated to the continent at the same time as Africans are face growing impediments to setting up shop in neighbouring countries. Chinese sources report a much lower number, but they only include workers on formal contracts.

Migrants have always been pawns in domestic politics and the games nations play. The artificial refugee crisis created by the Government of Belarus in 2021 is one example.  President Alexander Lukashenko boasted that he would flood the European Union with drug smugglers, human traffickers, and armed migrants. Flights to the Middle East were increased to accommodate the tens of thousands of mainly Kurdish refugees who received new visas. The government said they were promoting their tourism sector. Arrivals reported they were provided with wire cutters and directions to unprotected border points.

The coronavirus pandemic added biomedical criteria to the list of conditions travellers must satisfy. Such trends contrast with economists’ reckoning that the free movement of people is one of our most effective tools for poverty reduction, and that it could potentially increase global GDP by over 30 per cent.

Despite the many success stories of displaced communities who have made good, perceptions of migration are now intertwined with climate change, socioeconomic precarity, and the other political forces reconfiguring today’s world. The administrative and political constraints hindering international travel immigration have long term implications for Africa’s developmental trajectory at a time when the continent’s population is surging.

Or does it?

External perspectives on African migration

There are many variations on the large-scale movement from one environment to another: involuntary, circular, seasonal, episodic, transnational, sponsored, and spontaneous to name a few. The scope of migration studies and policy analysis is by the same measure extensive and multi-faceted. This literature conveys a rather complicated picture of the dynamics in play and the empirical outcomes they continue to generate.

The common approach sees migration as a series of discreet events, reinforced by the role of diverse influences like political conflicts, environmental calamities, and economic drivers. It is further obfuscated by the influence of ethnic diasporas, reactionary populist enclaves, and human trafficking networks. Nomenclature distinguishing migrant from immigrant, immigrant from citizen, and guest workers from expatriates adds an element of incongruency.

The world appears to be awash with ever increasing numbers of migrants as the news cycle saturates us with images from crisis spots like Syria, Afghanistan, and the Ukraine. But the popular perception that most migration is driven by domestic crises does not synch with the large body of research, data, and scholarship. Rather, the evidence shows the migration is beneficial for both the new hosts and sending nations. Refugees comprise only a minor portion of the people on the move according to global data statistics.

The data also indicates that most international migration follows conventional pathways and formal procedures. The great majority of Africans leaving the continent do so in possession of valid passports and visas. The typical immigrant leaves in search of education, employment, and to reunite with family members. One study of African trends and patterns since 1960 calculated that only 20 per cent of African migrants between 1960 and 2010 were attributable to conflict and poverty. The analysis goes a long way towards debunking the stereotypical view that African is a continent on the move, and that most of the traffic is directed toward Europe.

The popular perception that most migration is driven by domestic crises does not synch with the large body of research, data, and scholarship.

But this is not 2010. The world has shifted. The intensity of African migration (the percentage of emigration relative to the domestic population) has decreased, but this is accompanied by recent claims that environmental disasters, political instability, and the uneven impacts of globalisation now account for the majority of African movements. A UN University study on the root causes and regulatory dynamics of African migration begins with the highly dubious claim that migrants now comprise 12.5 per cent of the world’s population. It proceeds to observe that:

There are an estimated 1 billion migrants in the world today and demographic imbalances, economic inequality, increased globalization, political instability and climatic changes will all contribute to increasing large-scale migration in the coming decades, disproportionally affecting the Global South.

Determining the facts is not easy. After Syria, Africa as a region does host the world’s largest share of displaced persons. But the study cited here does little to clarify what the disproportionate effects referred to actually are. Even if the role of episodic events is greater at this juncture, the overall rate of African migration has declined to 2.9 per cent, and 79 per cent of that statistic is limited to the emigrants’ home region.

The same localized pattern holds for the impacts of climate change. Images generated by crisis-driven migration have nevertheless come to personify the influence of the environmental changes erupting across the planet. Levels of uncertainty are increasing apace. The sheer numbers of asylum seekers quarantined on the Greek island of Lesbos, and the sordid conditions of the refugees packed into the “Calais Jungle” camp in northern France reinforce public support for tightening borders. At the same time, unmet demand in labour markets is reflected in the growth of human trafficking, which tripled between 2008 and 2019.

 Institutionalization of state surveillance in China and the zero-tolerance enforcement towards asylum seekers in Australia and eastern European countries may be symptoms of the fading neo-liberal vision. These and other policies are also influenced by the perceived threat of mass migration: allowing a small trickle today will turn into a flood tomorrow. Once again, empirical data contradicts popular perceptions. The UNHCR reports that two-thirds of the world’s refugees come from five countries: Syria, Venezuela, Afghanistan, South Sudan, and Myanmar.

Local and regional issues are responsible for the great majority of involuntary movements.  The internally displaced now make up the great majority of the world’s refugees. The strict transnational protocols being enacted nevertheless point to the hidden transcript influencing white-wing populist narratives. Commentators like Tucker Carlson, for example, exploit ethno-nationalist nostalgia combined with the longstanding fear of barbarians at the gate to promote his replacement theory polemic in the United States.

The internally displaced now make up the great majority of the world’s refugees.

They need not worry. Migration is a function of capacity. For the highly skilled, migration is easy, and they emigrate over long distances. Although the poor also migrate, they do so less often and cover much shorter distances.

Redefining African migration

Studies of migration typically focus on push and pull factors, socioeconomic variables, directionality and destinations, and feedback effects like the brain-drain and other impacts. For present purposes, its best to redefine immigration as process, punctuated by stress and friction, facilitating the flow of ideas, and leading to outcomes including integration, assimilation, and coevolutionary syntheses.

African exemplars of this process encompass distinct Mediterranean and Sub-Saharan African variations.  Examples of mass migration include the Arabisation of North Africa, the Nuer’s rapid expansion at the expense of the Dinka between 1795 and 1845, and the Ogaden Somali migrations into northeastern Kenya after crossing the Juba river. But for the most part, African history is a record of small groups inscribing multi-directional migrations out of several linguistic “cradlelands” or dispersal areas.

Africa’s historically low population densities, climatic and environmental uncertainty, and irregular distribution of natural resources favoured the free movement of people. Spatial variables and the variegated landscape played a primary role in the patterns of migration and settlement. The role of iron and the domestication of plant and animal species featured prominently in the slow but steady distribution of the population across the continent. In most cases expansion took the form of clans, extended families, and individuals covering relatively short distances.

This growth reached a threshold around 1250 CE, when the end of the high humidity climate of the first millennia set a number of populations on the move. This led to the modern configuration of the larger eastern and Horn of Africa region. The outcome of these movements, as the archaeological record dating back to proto-historic times shows, was a quilt-work of sedentary, transhumant, and nomadic communities. They practiced a spectrum of livelihood strategies adapted to the mosaic of irregular ecological niches.

Over time a number of cultural solidarities emerged. Examples are the agricultural Akan-Ashanti, Mande, and pastoral Fulani and Tuareg in West Africa, the pre-Arab Amazigh of northern Africa, and the Swahili of the Afro-Indian Ocean littoral.

African state formation occurred in a diversity of settings, while freedom to move on moderated the hegemonic proclivities of kingdoms and lineage societies. In West Africa, population compaction in the forest zone and long-distance commerce in the Sahel explain the earlier emergence and greater permanence of centralized states. The kingdoms of the Great Lakes came about through the confluence of Cushitic, Nilotic, and Bantu elements. Like Abyssinia, they trace their origins to the process of secondary state formation originating in ancient Egypt.

In many of these states the proclivity for centralization was countered by people’s ability to vote with their feet. Ruling clans carried their royal power objects and traditions with them in the case of the Lwoo speakers. Since the proto historical era the process resulted in resilient ethno-cultural mosaics bound together by webs of exchange, practicing different forms of decentralized governance, and demarcated by the interactive neutral zones that served as borders. These mosaics provided the underpinning for Africa’s distinctly coevolutionary developmental trajectory.

Many of these areas supported a coevolutionary dynamic that by the late precolonial era was feeding into the rise of proto-state organization, including the multi-ethnic followings attracted to charismatic leaders and prophets, and councils integrating generational age-set systems. Kinship fictive and real operated alongside other cultural institutions accommodating the migration and assimilation of clans and individuals.

The rise of multi-ethnic polities and networks continued up to the moment of European intervention. Imperial conquest short-circuited the process. The formation of Africa’s colonial states ring-fenced communities, demarcating hard borders separating nations and communities. Migration continued, but the process was now managed from above.

Contrary to the expectations cultivated by the Pan-African movement, decolonization actually resulted in a decline of migration. Governments used immigration controls to demonstrate their sovereignty over the populations within their borders. Both Ghana and Nigeria ordered large-scale deportations of African immigrants within their borders two decades into the independence era. Many countries imposed strict requirements for African nationals’ visas.

As noted above, most of the movement and scope for policy-based solutions is now taking place on the regional scale. Africa’s regional economic communities like the Economic Community of West African States, the East African Community, and the Southern African Development Community have endorsed policies supporting the free movement of people, but governments continue to display ambivalence when it comes to implementation. Intra-African movements continue to decline, especially for land-locked countries, although migration abroad remains strong in a sample of countries that include Angola, Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan, Uganda and Kenya.

Contrary to the expectations cultivated by the Pan-African movement, decolonization actually resulted in a decline of migration.

Africa’s mosaic template remains active, but at this moment it is for the most part sustained by internal displacement and the waves of refugees seeking sanctuary across borders. Both conflict and migration have always been intrinsic to socioeconomic transitions. This dynamic assumes greater cogency in current circumstances, where intra-African migration continues to decline and African states remain reluctant to relax border controls. These conditions in turn highlight the role of informal processes on the margins.

The region’s rangelands are the one area where the free movement of goods and peoples still follow the dynamics displaced by the imposition of artificial boundaries. A new IGAD-UNDP project supporting cross-border free-trade zones represents a first step towards recognizing how developments in these areas are contributing to regional integration. Benefits generated by the new socioeconomic mosaics emerging in the borderlands include improved cooperation among government administrators on issues of conflict, livestock rustling, and human trafficking.

No population is permanent

The evolutionary importance of migration remains undiminished. On a crowded planet demanding creative solutions, coevolutionary processes across system scales from local to global are the contemporary equivalent of bipedalism.

In an influential 1971 paper entitled Hypothesis of the Mobility Transition, Wilbur Zelinsky argued that processes of economic development and modernisation coincided with increasing rural-to-urban migration followed by a subsequent increase in emigration. Subsequent developments supported his predictions: as societies become wealthy emigration decreases and immigration increases.

Rising emigration is normally an indicator of a nation’s economic growth, education, and access to information and transnational networks. By this measure, Kenya’s mobility transition is well underway. The diaspora is an active contributor the national economy, and the country’s percentage of immigrants has gradually risen from 2.14 to 2.35 since 2005. These other indicators suggest it is one of a cluster of African nations poised to become net destination countries over the coming years.

Kalundi Serumaga’s companion piece to this essay clarifies the local context of the pathways discussed here. As he reminds us, modern world history is mainly a record of Western European migration. Their peregrinations gave us the present world system. If migration is a function of capacity and institutional checkpoints, this still favours citizens from the Global North—prompting Serumaga to conclude by predicting that the next large-scale migration into Africa will be Caucasian.

On a crowded planet demanding creative solutions, coevolutionary processes across system scales from local to global are the contemporary equivalent of bipedalism.

This makes karmic sense. From the onset of the Christian era until 1900 Africa’s percentage of the globe’s population decreased from 15 per cent to 9 per cent. Africa should have been a magnet for in-migration considering Africa demographic conditions and economic resources, but the continent got the slave trade instead. The flow of world history is due to reverse.

Africa’s share of the population is expected to hit 20 per cent in 2030. In two decades Africa will host the lion’s share of the world’s labour force. Unless artificial intelligence achieves a radical shift in how things work, global economic integration will follow suite. Africa will become a destination continent. The directionality of world migration is already shifting, but I disagree with Kalundi on its composition. As the continent’s future emerges, our new neighbours are more likely to be Chinese and Indian than European—alongside the sundry Sudanese, Nigerians, Egyptians, and Congolese.

But who knows? Zelinsky also prophesied that the widespread adoption of information and communication technologies will impact human geographic mobility. Maybe we will end up living in a demobilized world where everyone will be cohabiting in the metaverse.

Afghanistan has been described as the world’s most dangerous country for women. Many civil society organizations working on women’s rights claim that violence against women (VAW) is on the rise in the country. VAW takes many forms, and has deep and complex roots in the patriarchal culture of Afghan society. One form of VAW is denying women access to food. This discrimination is derived from patriarchal norms and the legal system.

Poverty is one of the major issues Afghanistan is struggling with. More than one third of the Afghan population lives below the national poverty line. This has a direct effect on the diets of most Afghan households, and often some family members suffer from nutritional deficiency, with the most vulnerable groups, such as women and children, more likely to be exposed to malnutrition.

Poverty is gendered and women are more likely than men to be poor. Malnutrition is prevalent among Afghan women. Approximately 21 per cent of Afghan women have a low body mass index (BMI), 48 per cent suffer from an iron deficiency, and a staggering 75 per cent suffer from iodine deficiency. In effect, women’s malnutrition has serious implications for the health of their children.

In Afghanistan, 55 per cent of children under the age of 5 do not receive sufficient nutrition to develop physically and mentally, leading to an extraordinarily high child mortality rate of 45 per cent. The primary reason for all this is gender inequality, which in Afghanistan is institutionalized.

Access to food is a means of social control 

Gender inequality can be both a cause and a result of food insecurity. Just as women’s access to education and healthcare has been limited by patriarchal norms and structures, so also has women’s access to nutrition and food been limited. Inequalities in access to food and women’s limited decision-making power at the household level can influence women’s role in society.

Food and nutrition can be used as a basic means of controlling women’s autonomy. For example, it limits women’s appearance outside of the household. If a husband does not agree to his wife working outside the house, a woman’s decision to go against her husband can simply mean starvation for her and her children as a form of punishment, since the husband is usually in charge of family expenditure and the purchasing of food.

Gender segregation and division of labour at the household level can infringe upon women’s access to food. In a patriarchal society such as Afghanistan, a man’s primary role is as a breadwinner, while a woman’s role is traditionally limited to providing household labour. As such, men are more likely to be in charge of the finances and even a household’s daily expenses. It is common practice in some parts of the country, especially in the periphery and in rural areas, for women to ask for money from the head of the household for the daily purchase of food, or to request men to buy various food items (particularly among families where women are not allowed to go shopping). While male members of the household are responsible for purchasing food, women are in charge of cooking.

Gendered food insecurity

The social foundations of women’s food discrimination in Afghanistan families are to be found in the practice of serving meals to men and women in separate rooms. This is particularly common in larger households where three generations live under the same roof. The rationale for this is to make women feel more comfortable while eating and to allow children to freely play around without upsetting the male members of the household, who can eat in peace and quiet.

Moreover, male members of the household are more likely to receive better food, or a bigger portion of it. This discrimination is particularly a problem among households with limited nutritional resources. It is not only perpetrated by men, but also by women, to the extent that mothers feed their sons better than their daughters when resources are limited. Men often engage in labour-intensive work such as farming, construction, and in the armed forces. Hence, food discrimination at the household level is justified based on needs, where men are prioritised.

Gender inequalities are legally manifested 

Women’s predicament in the family is to a great extent institutionalized through the laws of the country. The Civil Code of 1977, which is still in effect, contains many discriminatory articles that clearly put women at a disadvantage. By subjugating women to men’s authority and requiring them to submit to their will, women are, in effect, treated as legal minors.

These legal inequalities are manifested even more in Sharia law. Following the sharia rule of nafaqa, a man is obliged to support his wife with food, clothing and shelter as soon as the marriage is consummated. This is derived from the Quran (4:34), which states that “Men are protectors and maintainers of women because God gave one more than the other, and because they support them from their means.” A husband can be jailed for not providing nafaqa and the Civil Code of Afghanistan as well as the Shiite Personal Status Law include the provision that nafaqa is a husband’s responsibility.

Discrimination is not only perpetrated by men, but also by women, to the extent that mothers feed their sons better than their daughters when resources are limited.

These strict gender responsibilities enshrined in Sharia law and the legal code of the country have led to systematic discrimination against women. A woman is subjugated to a man’s authority for the provision of her food, and a man can easily justify limiting a woman’s participation in education and the workforce. These laws have largely been an interpretation of women’s “inferiority” to men, as women are considered “weak” and unable to provide for themselves.

Consequently, a husband or a male figure in the family is responsible for providing a woman with her basic material needs. In turn, women and men are socialized to internalize such gender practices. In fact, men can suffer from such gendered roles as well. For example, research conducted by the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU) found that many Afghan men feel that they are unable to live up to the  expectations that society places on them.

Further legal and social reforms are necessary

Since 2001, significant efforts have been made to address legal discrimination against women. Afghanistan’s constitution makes provisions that allow for the adoption of laws that ensure equality. In fact, Article 7 of the Afghan constitution states, “The state shall observe the United Nations (UN) Charter, inter-state agreements, as well as international treaties to which Afghanistan has joined, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” The ratification of the UN Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 2003 was a major step in this direction.

However, bringing family laws in line with the constitution is a challenge, particularly when the laws are based on Sharia law. In this regard, Article 3 of the constitution clearly makes the provision that “No law shall contravene the tenets and provisions of the holy religion of Islam in Afghanistan.” As a consequence, many religious groups in the country can easily reject a Civil Code that is based on the principles of gender equality and perceived to violate Sharia law.

Research conducted by the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU) found that many Afghan men feel that they are unable to live up to the expectations that society sets for them.

To address systematic discrimination against women, the legal code of the country needs to be revised. Evidently, the implementation of progressive reform policies to ensure women’s rights will be a very challenging task that needs to be addressed through a comprehensive strategic plan. For example, in 2013, hundreds of women affiliated with radical Islamic groups in Kabul carried out a demonstration against the Law on Elimination of violence against women.  They viewed the law as a “plot by the West to strip Muslim women of their Islamic dignity.” Hence, progressive reforms in family law will not be possible without the lobbying of members of parliament and religious leaders and the direct engagement of civil society organizations at the local level.

Without enforcement of the law, challenging discriminatory legal codes alone will not be sufficient. To address the issue of women’s access to food and the broader underlying factors associated with food discrimination, namely gender inequality, longer-term policies need to be put in place. These policies need to allow for women’s education and participation in the labour force. Educational programmes should address discriminatory practices at the family level. Gender studies should be incorporated into the school curriculum so that young girls and boys receive formal training and exposure to the issue from an early age. These are the first important steps that need to be taken so that violence against women in any form, including food discrimination can be eradicated in Afghanistan.

***

Dining with the Taliban 

A meal that most Afghans like is Qabuli, a dish of rice cooked with meat, served with raisins, fried carrots and topped with almonds. It used to be one of my favourite dishes and I have a particular memory tied to it. In 1998, I was working as an interpreter with Médicins Sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders) in Afghanistan. I got the job after the Taliban took over Kabul and closed down all the schools for girls. I was one of the few lucky women in the whole city who could work outside the home and had a job in the health sector, the only sector in which the Taliban allowed women to work.

In the summer of 1998 I travelled with the MSF team to the province of Ghor to carry out a health and nutrition survey among Afghan families. Tulak, the Taliban administrator for the district, invited the MSF team for lunch at one of the very few restaurants in the small local bazaar, which consisted of two rows of stores built with mud. Turning down the invitation would not have been taken well, especially since the team needed protection in order to be able to carry out its work. So we decided to go. I was one of the only two women on the team; the other woman was an anthropologist. The pious Taliban, who did not talk to women, let alone dine with them, guided the two of us to the smaller room behind the main salon where all the men were seated on the floor for lunch.

Gender studies should be incorporated into the school curriculum so that young girls and boys receive formal training and exposure to the issue from an early age.

Our food was sent to the room where the two of us were sitting in one corner, like two prisoners, whispering in soft voices lest the men in the main room hear us. It was Qabuli. I thought: at least the Taliban got one thing right! Alas, it had an overdose of oil. Oil was literally dripping from each grain of rice. We each reluctantly ate a spoonful. Not eating the food could be considered an insult and we did not want to insult the Taliban, who had already taken a leap of faith by inviting two women to lunch. So, we started to encourage each other to keep eating, but we just could not.

So I came up with the idea of emptying half of the big plate of rice into a plastic bag and taking it with us. We found a plastic bag in the room, but as luck would have it, it had a hole in it.  Nonetheless, I emptied most of the rice into the bag.  I had to carry the bag under my burqa, as my foreign colleague was not required to wear a burqa and couldn’t be seen with a plastic bag filled with Qabuli. As we left the restaurant, I was carrying the bag of Qabuli well aware that that the rice was spilling out from the hole in the plastic bag.

By the time we reached the MSF cars, I had left behind a meandering trail of Qabuli from the restaurant to the white Pajero parked at the entry to the bazaar. I also had a big, visible oil stain on my burqa. We burst into laughter once we got into the car. Anytime I see Qabuli now, I am reminded of my dining experience with the Taliban.

In some of his recent remarks, the Deputy President of Kenya, Rigathi Gachagua, mentioned the potential of working with farmers in forest areas to produce food and reverse our currently perilous food security situation. His political mettle was instantly tested by the volume (if not the technical content) of the protests that followed. As an environmental policy specialist, I was intrigued by the responses, but this soon gave way to despair as I realized that the vast majority of the commentary (and the most raucous) came from people who didn’t seem to have the faintest idea what they were talking about. Sadly, this included op-eds written in major news publications. This majority rightly lamented the low proportion of forest cover in Kenya (currently standing at 7.2 per cent) and how we couldn’t afford to lose any more of it. This emanated from a strange belief that the proposals were to cut down forests in order to create room for agriculture and the failure to understand that what they were discussing was actually a scheme for expansion of forest cover.

The language and tone also pointed to an urban, middle-class demographic that is psychologically far removed from nature, other than as a playground. Some even pointed to the excision of forests that occurred during the Daniel Moi presidency as an effect of the “shamba system”, rather than simple impunity. Never mind that the DP’s remarks were in reference to a scheme introduced in the Forest Act of 2005, after Moi left office. Because of my well-known opposition to foreign NGO control of our natural resources, I posed a public question on a social media platform suggesting that the presence of local forest users might be a deterrent to this kind of annexation. The comments this elicited ranged from outrage at my suggestion that people be allowed to use forests rather than be kept out, to open declarations that NGO annexation is a better outcome than forests “being grabbed” by locals. To me, the most startling aspect of the (non-factual) noise, however, was the absurdity of the elite visiting opprobrium on the proletariat for excesses perpetrated by the elite themselves.

This level of self-contradiction at a societal scale is typical of Kenyans’ thinking around natural heritage, because almost 60 years into our nationhood, we haven’t shaken off the romantic Western paradigm that designates our natural heritage as chattel. We are therefore unable to value these resources intrinsically or based on what they mean to us, as opposed to what a foreigner will pay to see, own or destroy them. What foreigners and their interests do is never questioned by this “passionate” elite. For instance, there is a radioactive materials dump in a fenced, labelled concrete structure in the forest right at the Naro Moru gate to Mt. Kenya National park. All the elite visitors to the park cannot miss it on their way in, but I have never once heard or read a word about it, other than what I have personally said and written.

There is a radioactive materials dump in a fenced, labelled concrete structure in the forest right at the Naro Moru gate to Mt. Kenya National park.

In over two decades’ experience in the conservation sector, I have visited all the different forest biomes in this country and one indisputable fact is the vast spectrum of biotic, edaphic, environmental and human factors around them. There is no single, one-size-fits-all policy or management action that is either applicable or not applicable across all forests. Yet, judging from the vast majority (and most strident) of voices against the so-called “shamba system”, the fortress conservation movement has successfully spread a single crisis story about the policy that has been taken up in its entirety by the lay population, including the false “corporate ownership” narrative.

The plaintive cry from elites for peasant farmers to keep out of “our” forests is bizarre in the way it perceives locals as interlopers and places the non-farming population in the exalted position of “ownership” as conservationists. As is the case in other fields, Kenyans have learned very well from the prejudiced forest management playbook written by the colonial government in the mid-20th century. Forests were to be used by tourists, hunters (before the change in law) and fly fishermen, but not those seeking fuelwood, food items, medicinal plants, etc. Basically elite lifestyle pursuits were given precedence over local livelihoods, a paradigm that remains unchanged over a century later. This policy position instantly criminalized forest-dependent or forest-resident communities like the Ogiek, Sengwer, and Ndorobo, a disadvantaged position that has persisted to this day. As a field biologist studying wildlife, my training always required that I be a keen observer of my environment for both professional and safety reasons. Having carried this into the policy field where I primarily work currently, it is obvious that Kenya’s natural heritage has become a “white space” where even the normally power-retentive Government of Kenya has strangely relinquished its authority to Western interests.

As is the case in other fields, Kenyans have learned very well from the prejudiced forest management playbook written by the colonial government in the mid-20th century.

I have written extensively elsewhere about the reasons for this so in this instance, I will focus on the residual effects of this abdication on the Kenyan psyche. Indigenous Kenyans have been successfully deleted from the intellectual arena surrounding our natural heritage. The profiteering from Kenya’s natural heritage either through tourism investments or donor funds has therefore become inextricably anchored in the absence of black people, or the myth of “wilderness”. This was the basis of the creation of national parks by the colonial administration and the establishment of “protected areas” under various other guises in post-independence Kenya.

In order to have any sensible discourse on this issue, we must get on to the same page as per the definition of what we’re casually referring to as the “shamba system”. The official terminology used by the state authority is PELIS (Plantation Establishment and Livelihood Improvement Scheme). Basically, this is a scheme introduced after enactment of the Forest Act of 2005, with implementation beginning in 2007. Local or “forest adjacent” communities are the primary beneficiaries of the scheme where they are temporarily allocated plots upon which they plant seedlings, tend them until they form a canopy while practicing agriculture on the allocated plots. The farming is done under the supervision of the Kenya Forest Service (KFS) and their officers, who also determine when the tenure of the allottees ends and they must move out, with reference to the growth of the trees.

Looking at the spirit of this law, it is a welcome acknowledgement that indigenous people in Kenya depend upon natural resources for their livelihoods, and this includes rangelands, wetlands and forests. The state conservation structures in Kenya that were contrived by the colonial government were based on the Victorian gamekeeper model, where natural heritage was reserved for the edification of the elite at the expense of the proletariat. Needless to say, in rural African societies, which had their own natural resource use norms, the application of this model required perpetual, slow-burning violence in the form of fences, strict laws, armed guards and assorted forms of retribution for those in breach. From the mid-19th century, Kenya adopted this system to establish tree plantations by means of cheap or totally free labour, in order to meet the demand for timber.

The initial “shamba system” was introduced as a way to press locals into providing labour to supply firewood in “exchange” for farms in the early 20th century, and persisted in that format for several decades. After independence the narrative was adjusted to include seeking to involve landless communities in forest conservation, and by the 1980s, problems associated with the system started emerging, particularly the encroachment of exotic monocultures of cypress, pine, and eucalyptus. These exotics were planted to supply timber, paper pulp, and other wood products. The thriving tea estates are notable drivers of plantations, because (eucalyptus) wood fires are still the only method used for curing tea.

Under the regime of Daniel arap Moi (1978-2002), there existed a situation where the executive had absolute power to excise and de-gazette forest lands at will, basically for agriculture and settlement. On paper, these were described as actions to settle the poor or landless people, but on the ground, forest land became political currency, used by the high and mighty to reward themselves and their cronies. Philosophically, it is vital to note here that the destruction of forests was driven, perpetrated and normalized by the elite, who accepted the tea estates, tourism and recreational facilities thus established. The proletariat were as always, kept away by means of state violence. Our society’s inability to mentally traverse the two decades and presidencies that have gone by between the Moi era and now, is partly due to our indolence and the manner in which the media is treating the issue. A notable example of this is a report by Citizen TV on 25th September 2022 headlined “DP Gachagua pledges return of Moi-era shamba system”. Mainstream media in Kenya has rarely been distinguished as a driver of sensible public discourse.

The advent of PELIS under the new Forest act of 2005 therefore was intended to mitigate the violence, restore the lost resource rights to a certain degree, and most importantly provide livelihoods and contribute to Kenya’s food security by structuring forest usage. The importance of a policy underpinning the use of forests cannot be overstated because food cultivation is only one facet of it. People use forests for non-timber products like honey, medicinal plants, fruits, vegetables, and pasture.

The nature of forests in Kenya is extremely varied, from the tropical rainforest in Kakamega, to montane forests in Mt. Kenya, dry highland forests in Samburu, coastal delta forests, and mangrove forests. Not all these forests are used by local communities in the same way, and the PELIS scheme is only applicable to the restoration of forests that have already suffered damage from illegal activities, and to plantation buffer zones that surround indigenous forests. It is inapplicable, for example, in the saltwater mangrove forests or the rocky dry highland forests. There are some forest like Giitune forest in Meru, or Kiagonga gia Agikuyu in Nyeri, which are recognized by both the state and communities as sacred and cannot be used for PELIS, regardless of government policy. There are also the dry highland forests in the arid North, which are more important as dry season pastures, rather than arable land because of the prevailing climate and wildlife populations therein. Sadly, though, most of the latter have been annexed by amorphous entities called “conservancies” which deny their owners access to these resources in favour of tourism investors and buccaneers involved in the global money-laundering scheme known as “carbon trade”.

Under the regime of Daniel arap Moi, there existed a situation where the executive had absolute power to excise and de-gazette forest lands at will.

PELIS is far from universally applicable in all forests but its importance (apart from enhancing food security) cannot be overstated as a policy platform on which forest-adjacent communities can negotiate and build their user rights. The ongoing furore has also laid bare the abject failure of KFS to educate the wider public about the details and provisions of this crucial policy. On the surface this may look like basic negligence, but it may also be a deliberate political effort to roll the policy back in favour of the elites and NGOs who are the primary beneficiaries of unutilized forests and who have a strong foothold in the KFS management. Whatever the case, this studious silence is unacceptable from a taxpayer-funded state authority.

Kenya is currently in the process of transition to a new government, and this may well be an opportunity for us citizens to revisit the way in which we relate to our natural resources and embrace the complexity thereof. We aren’t tenants here; we are the owners of this heritage. Neither are we immigrants, because Kenya is widely acknowledged to be the cradle of mankind. We must disabuse ourselves of the Western notion that “Africa is a village” with uniform problems that require universally applicable external solutions. Even at country level, Kenya’s forests, landscapes and ecosystems are extremely varied, requiring a more sophisticated management approach than the simplistic tools that were imposed by exploitative foreigners a century ago. The reason why our natural resource management is so costly is because the methods we employ are largely unsustainable and exogenous. This is why the boards of the state authorities in charge of our natural heritage are never free from the consumers of the said resources and are so reluctant to speak on the rights of local users. Hopefully, the state authorities will also become agile enough to take considered positions on policy implementation and take responsibility for changing or modifying these positions as and when necessary.

The ongoing furore has also laid bare the abject failure of KFS to educate the wider public about the details and provisions of this crucial policy.

There is a famous market near Kinale on the Nairobi-Naivasha highway named “Soko Mjinga” because of the prices of produce there that used to be ridiculously low. What’s undeniable is the quality and quantity of fruits and vegetables on sale there, in addition to the substantial amount that is transported daily for sale at Wakulima Market in Nairobi. It is a favourite shopping stop for Nairobi elites who drive along that road with their families. This urban elite group have been the most vociferous in opposing peasant farming around forests, yet at least 70 of  per cent of the produce they so love to buy at Soko Mjinga is produced under the PELIS programme in the Kereita and Kieni forests. You’d be hard pressed to find a more elegant snapshot of the dissonance that ails our understanding of our own natural heritage.

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This article is part of The Elephant Food Edition Series done in collaboration with Route to Food Initiative (RTFI). Views expressed in the article are not necessarily those of the RTFI.