Karura Forest is a 1,041 hectare urban sanctuary located in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi. It serves as one of the city’s largest remaining green spaces and sits in the northern part of the city, providing recreation and environmental services to millions of residents. Notably, it is one of the largest urban gazetted forests in the world.
In August 2025, entry fees previously managed by Friends of Karura, the community group that has restored the forest since 2009, were redirected exclusively through the government’s eCitizen platform. This seemingly administrative shift directly contradicted a twenty-year partnership that had transformed a degraded landscape into one of East Africa’s most successful urban conservation stories.
The Kenya Forest Service directive removed Friends of Karura from forest management, cutting off the revenue stream that funded forest guards, restoration programmes, and community outreach. The organisation has challenged the move in court, arguing that it violates their legally binding joint management agreement signed with the government.
This dispute represents a fundamental question about who controls natural resources and whether community-led conservation can survive when governments decide to recentralise power.
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During Kenya’s liberation struggle, these forests served as sanctuaries for Mau Mau freedom fighters resisting British colonial rule. Here, warriors stored supplies, held clandestine meetings, and trained in guerrilla tactics. The National Museums of Kenya estimates that about 11,000 Mau Mau fighters died during their struggle for land and identity, with thousands more imprisoned. Karura’s soil, trees, and caves remain living reminders of this struggle.
This legacy of resistance continued in the 1990s when Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai and local residents braved violence and intimidation to defend the forest against land grabbers and developers. Their efforts demonstrated the power of community-led conservation and reinforced that Karura belongs to those willing to protect it.
When Friends of Karura began restoration efforts in 2009, much of the forest had been stripped bare by illegal logging, charcoal burning, and encroachment. Squatters had built structures throughout the forest, while dumping and quarrying scarred the landscape.
Under community management, Karura became a model urban forest. The group planted over 200,000 indigenous trees, established 50 kilometers of walking and cycling trails, and created sustainable financing through modest entrance fees and guided tours. Today, the forest hosts over 260 bird species, regulates water flows for Nairobi’s northern suburbs, and provides recreation space for thousands of residents weekly.
Friends of Karura operated under Kenya’s Forest Conservation and Management Act of 2016, which explicitly encourages community participation in forest management. The law establishes Community Forest Associations (CFAs) as legal entities that can enter joint management agreements with the state, sharing both responsibilities and benefits from forest resources.
Yet Karura’s experience reflects a broader pattern in Africa, where successful community conservation becomes a victim of its own success. When forests or other natural areas gain economic or political value, governments often reclaim control from the communities that restored them.
Consider the contrast with Arabuko Sokoke, Kenya’s largest coastal forest, where genuine partnership between government and communities has thrived for over two decades. The forest is managed through a joint committee including both Kenya Forest Service officers and representatives from local Community Forest Associations. Communities benefit directly through beekeeping, butterfly farming, and eco-tourism, while the forest maintains its biodiversity and carbon storage functions.
The difference lies in implementation. At Arabuko Sokoke, communities remain genuine partners in decision making and revenue sharing. At Karura, the community partner has been effectively removed despite their proven track record.
Research consistently demonstrates that community-managed forests achieve better conservation outcomes than state-controlled areas. A 2019 study by the World Resources Institute found that community-managed forests had significantly lower annual deforestation rates compared to protected areas managed solely by governments. However, such partnerships require governments willing to share power and revenues, increasingly rare qualities in contemporary African governance.
This approach breeds inefficiency and alienation where citizens become subjects rather than stewards, weakening the social bonds that sustain long-term conservation. It further perpetuates the colonial mindset that views local communities as obstacles to conservation rather than essential partners.
The implications extend beyond Kenya. Across Africa, similar struggles play out in Tanzania’s wildlife corridors, Botswana’s hunting concessions, and Ghana’s forest reserves. States often invoke conservation rhetoric to justify displacing communities who have successfully managed these areas for generations. This approach breeds inefficiency and alienation; citizens becoming subjects rather than stewards; and the weakening the social bonds that sustain long-term conservation.
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The resolution of the Karura dispute will indicate whether Kenya’s government prioritises community-based conservation or regards such partnerships as contingent arrangements. Moreover, the case provides instructive insights for other African states grappling with similar tensions between centralised authority and local environmental governance.
The forest’s trees survived colonial exploitation and post-independence neglect, flourishing under community care. The current dispute tests whether democratic environmental governance can withstand centralised control.
Karura offers a clear case study in the politics of conservation. Success here could inspire similar community partnerships across the continent. Failure risks undermining not just one forest, but the broader credibility of participatory conservation models that Africa desperately needs.
Its future will reveal whether Kenya chooses to strengthen community conservation or revert to centralised control, with consequences reaching far beyond Nairobi.
Adwera Loice is a Nairobi-based environmental researcher focusing on law, policy, and nature-based solutions in Africa. Ian Chebii is a Nairobi-based law graduate with a strong interest in community-driven forest governance.