\u201cCall to Earth Day – Connected Generations\u201d celebrates the links between people and cultures and how these can help to play a vital role in preserving our planet.<\/p>\n
Naimina Enkiyio, or the \u201cForest of the Lost Child,\u201d stretches along the top of an escarpment on the western wall of the Rift Valley, Kenya. Legend has it that the forest is haunted by the spirit of a young girl lost while herding her family livestock. This place is sacred to the indigenous Maasai people, of whom around 25,000 live in and around it. Despite being just 70 or so miles southwest of the capital <\/strong>Nairobi, a lack of roads means these are some of the most remote Maasai clans in the whole of Kenya. <\/p>\n Not used to human presence, the forest\u2019s animals are shy and know how to avoid our noisy footsteps. It\u2019s hard to make out any creature, but there are signs of them everywhere. Piles of fresh elephant and buffalo dung obstruct the path. Chirps echo from the canopies, indistinguishable grunts and rustles come from within the overgrowth, and a gentle revving sound can be heard as colobus monkeys swing between branches overhead. High up in the Loita hills, this is the closest you\u2019ll come to hearing a motorbike. <\/p>\n Parmuat Ntirua Koikai, a Maasai elder, leads the way. The 58-year-old\u2019s earlobes are weighed down by bright beads and his back is draped in a red-checked shuka (a traditional cloth robe). He can\u2019t speak English, but he uses simple motions to communicate the knowledge inherited from his forefathers. He picks a leaf from a shrub, mimes eating it and rubs his tummy: Obibi naibor, used to treat diarrhea. He points at the roots of a tree, then to his back with an expression of pain: Olmorogi, for soothing aches. <\/p>\n Ntirua Koikai sees himself as a custodian of the forest. He and most of the community believe it is their duty to protect it \u2013 and in turn, they believe the forest will protect them. <\/p>\n \u201cWithout the forest there would be no people,\u201d he says in the Maa language, through a translator. \u201cWe use it as a clinic, a hospital, so we must handle it with a lot of care.\u201d <\/p>\n This deep-seated respect for the forest has earned it protection. Unlike many other forests in Kenya that have been logged or developed, Naimina Enkiyio remains largely intact. According to analysis of Hansen Global Forest Change data by the Mara Elephant Project, it has only lost 2% of forest cover since 2000, while some others in Kenya have lost 20 to 60% in the same timeframe. <\/p>\n But there is a growing <\/strong>fear among the community and conservationists that this could soon change, due to threats from land privatization, cultural shifts and the climate crisis. <\/p>\n That could have huge effects on the wider ecosystem. Located between the wilderness of the Serengeti and the Maasai Mara, the forest is a critical watershed, feeding the parched plains below where livestock graze and vast herds of wild animals migrate. <\/p>\n \u201cIt is a crucial drought reserve for elephants and a lot of the wildlife that comes up from the Mara Serengeti ecosystem,\u201d explains Rob O\u2019Meara, a conservationist who, together with his wife Sarah, both Kenyans, lives at the center of the forest with permission from the Maasai. He describes how, as climate change causes longer and harsher periods of drought, the forest could provide a lifeline to both humans and animals. <\/p>\n