Property, conservation, and enclosure in Karura forest, Nairobi

Abstract

This article tells the story of the urban Karura forest in Nairobi in order to explore access to and control of green spaces in an African city at a time of rapid, haphazard urbanization. Using insights from critical legal geography, it shows that although in strictly legal terms Karura forest remains properly gazetted public land, it continues to exclude citizens in important ways. This is because of a neoliberal conception of security that has promoted the exercise of significant private power over public space. The article examines the powerful ideas that were deployed to achieve the enclosure of the forest. Ideas of ecological guardianship were mobilized in tandem with arguments that the forest must be made ‘safe and secure’. A number of devices (fences, paths, trails, and signposts) played important property functions. This case study provides important insights into the politics of access to green space and to questions of social justice at a time of rapid urban change, not just in Kenya but more widely.