Kenya combs forest for squatters

Officials in Kenya have started combing the country's largest woodland, the Mau forest, to ensure squatters have left after a deadline for their eviction expired. Many of its rivers, which supply vital water, have dried up and the government wants to restore the eco-system. Most of the region's 20 thousand families have left their farms.

Reports from the area say, many had nowhere else to go and are now living in squalid and desperate conditions on the forest boundaries.

During the past 15 years, more than a hundred thousand hectares, one quarter of the protected forest reserve, had been settle and cleared.

The government has said it would compensate settlers who could supply title deeds to their land.

However, it is estimated that as few as one thousand nine hundred and sixty two families have genuine title deeds. Much of the land was handed out by politicians in the run – up to elections and then re-parcelled and sold illegally.

Officials now intend to replant the more that 100 million trees felled by the squatters and illegal loggers. But environmentalists estimate that it will be many decades before Kenya rivers flow again.