Ngusilo belongs to the Ogiek group, which is among the last hunter-gatherer communities in Africa and one of the most marginalised in Kenya.
He described how their ancestral lands were seized by the government in the name of conservation at the end of 2023, when men armed with hammers and axes suddenly appeared, violently evicting them from their homes.
"When I come here, I'm so sad. Tears are coming out of my eyes," Ngusilo said, looking at the remains of his father and grandfather's house.
Bees buzz behind the 38-year-old human rights activist, and some of his community peacefully weave their cattle through the trees -- despite a ban on livestock, brutally enforced by Kenyan Forestry Service (KFS) rangers.
In December, a herder drowned while fleeing from the rangers, Ngusilo said.
The calm of the Mau Forest contrasts with stories of decades of persecution and dispossession recounted by its indigenous people -- all in the name of conservation.
The African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights (AfCHPR) ruled in 2017 and 2022 that the evictions were illegal, ordering Nairobi to pay reparations equivalent to more than $1 million and to recognise their ancestral lands.
But Kenya has still not complied.
- 'We are suffering greatly' -
Deprived of their livelihoods, they recount a difficult daily existence that is slowly but surely destroying their traditions and their language.
"Before, in the forest, we could survive -- eat honey, hunt, live," Ngusilo's grandmother, Janet Sumpet Ngusilo, 87, said.
"Now, out here, we are suffering greatly."
At a festival earlier this month, hundreds of community members rallied to keep the ceremonies and traditional songs alive, but also to remember what they have lost.
"I survived on meat and honey. Young people today don't know that life," said Salaton Nadumwangop, describing how he would sleep beneath the trees.
"The forest is our life," the 55-year-old Nadumwangop, dressed in traditional costume and a fur hat pinned with beads evoking bees, told AFP.
- Existential threat -
A government representative at the festival, Josphat Lodeya, promised the verdicts of the AfCHPR court would be implemented.
Lodeya, who heads the department for minorities and marginalised people, said the government was doing what it should.
"It is the same thing I have heard many times, so let us wait and see," said Daniel Kobei, head of the Ogiek People's Development Program.
But despite the assurances, which the crowd clung to hopefully, Nadumwangop said the Ogiek -- whom he described as a "small people" -- knew they lacked power.
"Even if we try to vote, they consider us worthless. So they despise us," he said.
Ngusilo believes the authorities are "trying to sell us out", saying that he would die to return home.
During a visit to his family home earlier that week, AFP reporters witnessed him receive multiple calls from what he said were KFS rangers, threatening to arrest him for being there.
KFS could not be reached by AFP for comment by publication.
More than 20 percent of the Mau have disappeared since the 1980s, according to various studies, with rights groups and elders accusing rapacious local officials.
Several community members have also alleged that carbon credit projects were behind the evictions at the end of 2023.
These allegations are difficult to prove, although several lawyers and observers consider them plausible.
For Nadumwangop, he remains worried about his people's future.
"If things continue like this, the Ogiek will disappear. We will be completely lost."
Fight to save last forests of the Comoros unites farmers and NGOs
Mutsamudu, Comoros (AFP) Aug 29, 2025 -
Strips of bare land scar the lush and green mountainsides towering above Mutsamudu, the capital of the Indian Ocean island of Anjouan.
On the most mountainous and densely populated island in the Comoros, only the most remote forests have escaped decades of deforestation -- ravages which several NGOs are now trying to repair.
"We lost 80 percent of our natural forests between 1995 and 2014," Abubakar Ben Mahmoud, environment minister of the country off northern Mozambique, told AFP.
The clearing of the forest for cultivation has compounded damage caused by the production of ylang-ylang essential oil, used in luxury perfumes, and the manufacture of traditional carved wooden doors for which the island is renowned.
With a high population density of more than 700 residents per square kilometre, "deforestation has been intensified as farmers are looking for arable land," the minister said.
The brown and barren patches on the slopes are starkly visible from the headquarters of Dahari, a leading organisation in the fight against deforestation, based in the hills of Mutsamudu.
The NGO last year launched a reforestation programme, working hand-in-hand with local farmers who are called "water guardians".
Under a five-year conservation contract, the farmers commit to replanting their land or leaving it fallow in exchange for financial compensation, said one of the project's managers, Misbahou Mohamed.
The first phase has included 30 farmers, with compensation paid out after inspection of the plots.
- Perfume and smoke -
Another significant contributor to deforestation on Anjouan, the ylang-ylang essential oil industry, has in recent years heeded calls to limit its impact.
The Comoros is among the world's top producers of the delicate and sweet-smelling yellow flower, prized for its supposed relaxing properties and widely used in perfumes like the famous Chanel No 5.
The production of ylang-ylang, vanilla and cloves makes up a large part of the archipelago's agricultural output, which represents a third of its GDP.
The country has around 10,000 ylang-ylang producers, most based on Anjouan, according to a report commissioned by the French Development Agency for a project to support Comoran agricultural exports.
Burning wood is the cheapest source of fuel for the distillation process, the report highlighted, with 250 kilos (550 pounds) needed to produce one litre of essential oil.
Some producers are trying to limit their use of wood, such as Mohamed Mahamoud, 67, who said he halved consumption by upgrading his equipment.
"I now use third-generation stainless steel alembics, with an improved oven equipped with doors and chimneys," said Mahamoud, who has grown and distilled ylang-ylang near the town of Bambao Mtsanga for nearly 45 years.
To avoid encroaching on the forest, most of his wood now comes from mango and breadfruit trees he grows himself.
- Drying rivers -
Some producers have in recent years switched to crude oil to fuel their stills.
But that costs twice as much wood, said one ylang-ylang exporter, who asked to remain anonymous.
And high electricity prices in Comoros mean that using electrical energy would cost 10 times more, "not to mention the long periods of power cuts", he said.
Part of the drive to reduce wood consumption comes from an alarming observation: not only is deforestation stripping Anjouan's mountains, it is also drying up its rivers.
Forests are essential for "the infiltration of water that feeds rivers and aquifers... like a sponge that retains water and releases it gradually", said hydroclimatologist Abdoul Oubeidillah.
"In 1925, there were 50 rivers with a strong year-round flow of water," said Bastoini Chaambani, from the environmental protection NGO Dayima. "Today, there are fewer than 10 rivers that flow continuously."
The Comoros government has meanwhile announced it also intends to take part in reforestation efforts.
"We will do everything we can to save what little forest we have left," said the environment minister.
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