NAIROBI/MERU — Today, civil society organisations attending the Kenya Forest Service public participation forum on the proposed Imenti Forest airstrip witnessed a process so fundamentally compromised that it cannot, in good conscience, be recognised as meaningful public participation under any legal or constitutional standard.
We were there. We documented everything. And we are putting it on the record.
A forum designed to deliver one outcome
From the moment the forum opened, it was clear that this was not a consultation. It was a presentation.
KFS officials spoke exclusively about the airstrip, deliberately keeping the State Lodge, golf course, luxury hotels and all associated infrastructure out of the conversation, despite these forming part of the same project inside Imenti Forest. The public was never invited to engage with the full scope of what is being built in their forest.
KFS justified the airstrip as necessary for responding to wildfires and forest emergencies, citing 146 incidents over six years. They did not explain why Isiolo International Airport, which lies nearby along the Meru-Isiolo corridor, or Nanyuki Airstrip, also in close proximity and well-equipped, cannot serve that same purpose without touching a single tree inside a gazetted forest. They raised, on their own initiative, the use of drone technology for forest monitoring, without explaining why drones deployed from existing KFS bases around Mount Kenya at a fraction of the cost and with zero ecological footprint are not sufficient.
An Environmental Impact Assessment specialist was presented but offered no meaningful ecological findings, no substantive data, and no credible analysis of the project’s impact on the forest, its water catchment function, or the elephant nursery adjacent to the construction site. The Head of the KFS Air Wing spoke on site selection without once mentioning the elephant nursery as a factor considered.
This was the sum total of the evidence placed before the public to justify the clearing of a gazetted, protected forest.
A platform built for supporters, closed to everyone else
The forum then handed the floor exclusively to those who support the project.
Njuri Ncheke elders endorsed the project and described those opposing it as enemies of the community who do not wish Meru well. One elder, in a statement that went entirely unchallenged by KFS officials presiding over the forum, compared the project to raping a willing woman, implying that because some in the community support it, all opposition is illegitimate. This statement was made in a legally constituted public forum and is part of the official record of today’s proceedings.
Area MCA Caleb Mutethia, a former Community Forest Association chairman who had mobilised CFAs ahead of the forum, politicised the proceedings from the floor. He claimed that airstrips exist inside forests across Kenya and demanded to know why people are only raising concerns about Meru, providing no evidence whatsoever for the existence of those airstrips. He framed the entire opposition to the project as a politically motivated sabotage orchestrated by opposition leaders. The CFA echoed his position, telling civil society organisations present that people who do not live in Meru have no right to tell them how to manage their forest, as though a nationally gazetted public water tower is a local political asset to be disposed of at will.
MP Rahim stated plainly, from the floor of the forum, that this project will happen.
Throughout all of this, KFS officials said nothing.
Dissent was silenced. Physically.
When Kamanu M’Tuamwari, a Meru community member and artist, stood to present a petition carrying over 7,000 signatures opposing the project, he was immediately and aggressively heckled. Members of the crowd rose and attempted to physically attack him. Chaos broke out inside the venue. He was forced to flee for his safety.
His petition was ultimately received by the Principal Deputy to the Chief Conservator of Forests, Dr. Clement Ng’oriareng’, but was never read into the record, acknowledged from the floor, or afforded the weight that 7,000 documented voices of opposition deserve in any credible public participation process.
He was not alone. Community members who had come to voice their opposition were loudly told by project supporters that anyone who opposed the project had no right to speak and needed to leave. They were chased from the venue. In a forum convened under the Constitution of Kenya, which guarantees every citizen the right to public participation, Kenyans were physically driven from the room for holding a dissenting view.
Rhino Ark, one of Kenya’s most respected conservation organisations with decades of work protecting the Mt Kenya ecosystem, attempted to take the floor to table their concerns. They were not allowed to speak.
Greenpeace Africa, the Green Belt Movement, and FONNAP were denied any opportunity to speak, present their positions, or place a single objection on the official record.
The organisations silenced today collectively represent decades of on-the-ground conservation work in and around the Mt Kenya ecosystem and the broader Kenya’s Forests. We are not outsiders. We are not saboteurs. We are not enemies of the Meru community or of development. We have been working to protect the very forest, water sources, and wildlife that this community depends on, in many cases long before this project was ever conceived.
Today we were painted as the enemy. As people who do not want Meru to develop. As agents of opposition politics.
We reject that characterisation entirely.
Opposing the destruction of a gazetted forest, a critical water tower and an elephant nursery is not anti-development. It is pro-survival. It is pro-community. It is pro-Kenya. The communities who depend on Imenti Forest for water, for livelihoods and for the ecosystem that no State Lodge will ever replace are not our enemies. They are exactly who we are here for.
KFS refused a court order. In the middle of the forum.
During the proceedings, a court order was issued suspending the public participation forum on the grounds that the notice provided was legally insufficient.
The facts are these. KFS issued the original forum invitation on 26th June for a venue at Meru Technical College. On the evening of 6th July, fewer than 24 hours before the forum was scheduled to begin, the venue was changed to the Meru ASK Showground. A court found that this notice period did not meet the legal threshold for meaningful public participation and issued an order suspending the forum.
Lawyers present at the forum attempted to serve that court order on KFS officials. KFS refused to accept it. The forum continued regardless.
Refusing to acknowledge a court order in the middle of a legally constituted public process is not a procedural irregularity. It is a direct challenge to the authority of Kenya’s judiciary. It demands an immediate and unequivocal response from the relevant legal authorities, and we will be ensuring that it receives one.
Our position
A forum in which the full scope of a project is deliberately hidden from public view. Where the floor is given only to supporters. Where a man presenting 7,000 signatures is chased from the room. Where community members are physically driven out for daring to disagree. Where established conservation organisations are blocked from speaking. Where a court order is refused and the proceedings carry on regardless.
That is not public participation. It is a performance, with a predetermined script and a predetermined ending.
We formally and unequivocally reject the legitimacy of today’s process. Any decision, regulatory approval, or ESIA report that relies on today’s forum as evidence of adequate public participation will be legally challenged.
We call on NEMA to reject any ESIA report premised on today’s forum as constituting lawful public participation.
We call on the Environment and Land Court to take note of KFS’s refusal to accept a court order served during the forum and to act accordingly.
We call on CS Deborah Barasa and the Ministry of Environment, who have been silent through every stage of this crisis, to account publicly for what happened today and for what has been allowed to happen inside Imenti Forest.
And we call on President Ruto, who has dismissed those defending this forest as nonsense, to understand that 7,000 signatures, a roomful of conservation organisations, community members chased from a public forum, and a court order refused by a government agency are not nonsense. They are Kenya speaking. And Kenya deserves to be heard.
Imenti Forest is a gazetted, protected ecosystem. It is a water tower supplying millions of Kenyans. It is home to an elephant nursery. It belongs to all Kenyans, not to the political ambitions of those who would rather silence a community than listen to it.
We were told today that we are the enemy.
We will keep showing up anyway.
For media inquiries:
Sherie Gakii, Communications and Storytelling Manager, Greenpeace Africa, [email protected] | +254702776749
Iconic Kenyan forests making up almost 10 times the size of Nairobi are under threat.
Get Involved
