A/HRC/4/32/Add.3 page 12 forest, and were reduced to a miserable subsistence on the margins of this area rich in plants and wildlife. On the other hand, illegal logging, the introduction of exotic plantations and the excision of parts of the forest for private development by outside settlers have endangered the Mau Forest as a water catchment area, as well as the country’s environmental security. The Special Rapporteur on adequate housing, Miloon Kothari, signalled in his report on his mission to Kenya that the destruction of the forest has affected the rights of the Ogiek to housing, health, food and a safe environment, threatening to further destroy their cultural identity and the community as a whole (see E/CN.4/2005/48/Add.2, para. 61). 38. Despite a court injunction in their favour in 1997, the Government has proceeded to alienate Ogiek forest land, and a recent court decision does not recognize the Ogiek’s ancestral title to the forest. Still, the Government has distributed title deeds to land to several thousand Ogiek, and some non-Ogiek outsiders have tried to enrol as Ogieks in the hope that they may eventually also be given title deeds. The unresolved conflict between the Ogiek and their neighbours continues to this day. Being considered as squatters on their own land and legally banned from using the forest resources for their livelihood, their attempt to survive according to their traditional lifestyle and culture has often been criminalized and their repeated recourse to the courts has not been successful. Ogiek attribute this vulnerability to the fact that they are not recognized as a distinct tribe and therefore lack political representation. The Special Rapporteur met with members of several Ogiek villages, listened to their grievances and heard their demands for the recognition of their right to land and to maintain their traditional lifestyle in the forest. 39. A similar problem besets the Sengwer of the Cherangany Hills and Kapolet Forest in Trans Nzoia, Marakwet and West Pokot Districts, numbering around 30,000, who have not only been denied access to their traditional hunting and gathering grounds, now converted into a game park, but also their tribal identity. During colonial times the Sengwer were forced to assimilate into larger tribes; they were dispersed from their ancestral territory and expected to take up cattle raising and crop planting. The dispossession of their land continued in the post-colonial period, and like numerous other communities they have over time become victims of cattle rustling. The Special Rapporteur met with the Sengwer community and was informed that their situation may become more complicated by the project to construct a dam on the Kapolet River about which they claim they were not consulted and which may result in further evictions. Nowadays, they not only demand a solution to the land issue, but also claim formal recognition as a separate tribe and adequate political representation in their own district so that their requirements may be attended to by the government authorities, including compensation and consideration in relation to the construction of the dam system. 40. The Watta, a hunter-gatherer population who live dispersed among other groups near Marsabit, Isiolo, the Tana River and Voi, in the precincts of the Tsavo National Park, face similar threats to their livelihood. Not having received licences to hunt for their subsistence, they were considered illegal poachers, committing an offence punishable by law and treated as criminals when they attempted to survive. The El Molo, who practise a subsistence economy of fishing and herding on the eastern shore of Lake Turkana, are threatened by the continuous influx of settlers. They have appealed to the Government to allocate a title deed for the stretch of land between Sarama and Moite (a sacred mountain) to ensure their livelihood and the