How we helped Kenyans win environmental battle with UK army

The UK military has agreed to pay millions of pounds in compensation to thousands of people affected by a fire it sparked on the foothills of Mount Kenya in 2021.

The payout is being made without admission of liability, despite a British soldier posting on Snapchat during the incident: “Caused a fire, killed an elephant and feel terrible about it but hey-ho, when in Rome.”

A total of £2.9 million will be shared among 7,723 Kenyans who filed complaints in a case led by the African Centre for Corrective and Preventative Action (ACCPA).

The amount falls far short of the £1 billion claimants demanded but still represents a victory in a David and Goliath battle that saw nomadic cattle grazers, a children’s refuge and a women’s cooperative take on the former colonial power.

Father-of-two, Linus Murangiri, died fighting the fire that started at Lolldaiga ranch near Mount Kenya. His widow, Karen Gatwiri, told Declassified: “Linus used to complain that anytime the British army visited Lolldaiga they were rowdy, causing explosions and lighting fires that the workers had to extinguish.”

The ranch was owned by Robert Wells, a descendent of colonial settlers, who the British army paid for permission to train on the land. He has since sold much of his stake in Lolldaiga and lives comfortably in England.

Torched

Declassified investigated the case extensively, first exposing how it followed five smaller blazes sparked by British troops in the month before. None of those incidents were probed by the army who went ahead with an exercise at Lolldaiga in what British high commissioner Jane Marriott called “tinder box” conditions.

Kelvin Kubai, a lawyer for the claimants, told Declassified: “We relied heavily on your investigation, especially on the fact there were earlier fires. That was a very key finding.

“You also found that British army exercises in Kenya had created enough military debris to fill 13 shipping containers; all of that could potentially be ignited by such fires.”

We later travelled to Kenya and conducted interviews with scores of people affected by the fire. Their testimonies challenged the British army’s claim that only private land at Lolldaiga had been damaged.

At Mbogo-Ini, a primary school and refuge ten miles west of Lolldaiga, we met dozens of malnourished boys and girls whose parents lost crops or animals from the smoke, leaving them unable to feed their families.

One poor child fainted from hunger while we were there. Many struggled with sickness brought on by the fire.

“I’ve been really affected”, Samuel Lokure complained while holding a long white cane. “My eyes, my nose, my whole breathing system. Before I was able to see. But for now I don’t really see well. My eyes are itching every day. I’m totally disabled.”

On the front line was a Maasai settlement, Kimugandura, who paid Lolldaiga for the right to graze 10,000 cattle on the conservancy.

“Half have died from the fire,” Maasai leader Saituk Kaparo commented as he showed us a burnt barn. “We have suffered a lot. This was a cattle shed but they never made it out of the fire alive.”

Another Maasai herder, Elijah Meshami, said: “I’ve gone from having 300 to five cattle. They caught a disease from the smoke. The pastures we depend on are gone. We’re being forced to migrate because of the drought as well.”

‘Regret’

Two vets confirmed the scale of animal deaths and injuries. “Unfortunately a lot of cows have lost their eyesight. They’ve gone blind from conjunctivitis and bovine blindness,” Reuben Maina said.

His colleague, Flavian Njuguna, added: “It’s massive, the amount of cattle who’ve died from the fire. During the incident, most died due to smoke inhalation. Approximately more than 30,000.”

Lantano Nabaala, the elected speaker at the county assembly in Laikipia, stressed the impact of this loss on the Maasai. “It is the animals that give the pastoralists pride. Animals define who a person is in society. The more cows you have, the more you are respected.

“So when you kill our animals, you’ve not only killed what I could sell for food. You’ve also killed me as a person,” the politician explained.

Our investigation found that the fire produced so much smoke it represented 7% of the UK military’s carbon footprint that year. The landscape would take nearly 40 years to recover and requires a quarter of a million trees to be planted.

The British High Commission in Nairobi said in a statement: “The Lolldaiga fire was extremely regrettable, and the UK recognises the length of time it has taken to resolve this matter and the frustration that this has caused within the affected communities.”