A/HRC/4/32/Add.3 page 10 27. During the first half of the twentieth century, colonial authorities and European settlers seized the richest agricultural areas, while the original owners were displaced towards “native reserves” on far poorer land or remained as landless workers. After independence, the fertile agricultural lands of the “White Highlands” were bought back by the Government of Kenya, but they were not, contrary to early promises, returned to their original owners (among them the Maasai communities in the Rift Valley). The unequal distribution of land fostered a sense of relative injustice, and has created conflict over the years between farmers and pastoralists. 28. Most of the abuses after independence took place in Trust Lands, including former native reserves. The Constitution vests the administration of these lands in the County Councils, which acted “in total breach of trust as custodians of land on behalf of local residents” through the irregular adjudication of vast areas in favour of powerful individuals and settlers from other communities, and the establishment of protected areas (Ndungu report, p. 81). The prevailing theory of the sanctity of the title, whereby first registration of land title cannot be challenged in court regardless of fraud or mistake, further sanctioned these abuses. Displacement of original inhabitants has been widespread in the Rift Valley and Kajiado District, and most pastoralist grazing lands in the north and north-eastern regions face similar threats. 29. Since the end of the 1960s, and supported by the World Bank, the Government has promoted the transformation of Trust Lands into group ranches and then individual ownership, thus limiting the land available for traditional mobile grazing. Based on the idea that individual titles, through a “willing buyer-willing seller” approach, would improve the prospects for investment and economic growth, this policy in fact encouraged land grabbing and the massive sale of pastoralist land, particularly in areas neighbouring urban centres. 30. Loss of land through colonization, nationalization and privatization can be illustrated with the example of the Maasai, whose grazing areas were split by a colonial frontier installed between Kenya and Uganda at the end of the nineteenth century. It is estimated that the Maasai lost one third of their territory through coercive treaties in 1904 and 1911 imposed by the colonial regime, and were allowed to retain only small amounts of marginal land in the Kenyan districts of Narok and Kajiado. In Laikipia District, 75 per cent of the land still remains in hands of European owners. The Special Rapporteur personally observed traditional rangelands which were being fenced off, thus restricting the seasonal movements of the livestock herds of the nomadic pastoralist communities, as well as constricting the natural ecosystems of the wildlife, including important migratory routes. 31. After independence in 1963, the formerly closed Maasai districts were opened to immigration from other ethnic groups, based on the false assumption that large areas utilized by the Maasai for seasonal grazing were “idle land”. The Ndungu report documents the faulty adjudication of the Iloodo-Ariak in Kajiado District to hundreds of government officials and their relatives. Though they were not local residents, they were issued title deeds, while “many rightful inhabitants of the area were … disinherited from their ancestral land” (ibid., p. 141). It is estimated that the Maasai lost another third of their lands in Narok and Kajiado Districts as a result of these processes. In Kaijado alone, 50 per cent of Maasai households did not have land in 1997, as compared to around 8 per cent in the 1980s.