Families in three settlement schemes in Western are set to receive title deeds after the government moved to regularise their land ownership, following more than four decades of uncertainty.
The settlers in the Shiru/Shaviringa, Chebyuk II and III, and Manzini Era settlement schemes occupy land in Kakamega, Mt Elgon and Turbo forests, respectively.
The National Assembly approved a petition on June 24, 2026, seeking the variation of boundaries of the three forests to allow the degazettement of 1,241.5 hectares (3,067 acres) of Turbo Forest, 4,647 hectares (11,482 acres) of Mt Elgon Forest, and 130.9 hectares (323 acres) of Kakamega Forest.
Assembly clerk Samuel Njoroge issued certificates for the variation of the forest boundaries on June 25, following the adoption of a report by the departmental committee on environment, forestry and mining.
Under the approved plan, 6,018.5 hectares (14,872 acres) will be excised from the three forests.
The land will be used to settle squatters and families who surrendered their parcels to the government for the establishment or expansion of public institutions.
The land to be degazetted in the Shaviringa and Shiru areas of Kakamega Forest is occupied by families who were moved into the forest after surrendering their ancestral land around Mbale to the government for the establishment of Vihiga District headquarters—now the county headquarters—in the 1980s.
The surrendered land was also used to establish primary and secondary schools, football pitches, markets, a town hall, a cultural centre and a showground.
The affected families were to be compensated with alternative land twice the size of the parcels they surrendered, to be allocated within Kakamega Forest.
The first group was settled on 53 plots in Shiru sublocation between 1984 and 1985, while the second group was settled on 81 plots in Mukuchi/Shaviringa sublocation between 1994 and 1997.
The variation of the Mt Elgon Forest boundaries is intended to regularise the Chebyuk II and III settlement schemes, which are currently occupied by members of the Soy and Dorobo (Mosop) clans of the Sabaot community.
The settlements were established in 1974 after the government realised that members of the two clans, particularly those in the Cheptoror and Chepkurkur areas, had encroached on and were squatting on forest land.
The degazettement of part of Turbo Forest is intended to settle landless people and squatters in Uasin Gishu county.
The area has been surveyed and demarcated into 572 plots.
