26 out of the 30 locations in the two districts targeted by Ujamaa reported land tenure issues that are as old as the region itself. The fact of history in land injustices is worsened by the confusion in land laws in Kenya generally. The issues vary from each community to another. It is in some places the squatter problem where swathes of land are unbelievable idle because dwellers are waiting to be chased and shown where else to go despite the fact that they were

born and bred here. They live in fear of the unknown. This is found in all the locations where the group has been working.

In Kilifi for example one story that is very intriguing, is where there is ‘rumour’ of mineral deposits on certain parcels of land, which has led to a situation where such parcels are exempted from surveying or interference by any government officer, making this kind of land to always lack documentation. There is too in Kilifi two large farms owned by just two individuals who have become a model of exploitation in the district, talking about them highlights the difficult task the people of the coast are faced with in trying to resolve issues of land.

Kilifi Plantations and Rea-Vipingo are a classic example of what exploitation is all about and this scenario is repeatedly replicated elsewhere in the district. Not even leadership dares to talk about these farms, and political regimes that have ruled Kenya since independence never attempted to deliberate the equity concerns that generations of indigenous people have continued to raise with regard to these farms. The present scenario is that apart from being squatters others even pay rent to absentee landlords implying that they own not any crop. The land documentation available comes with a lot of disheartening dimensions, as there are claims that successive governments have used title deeds for their political campaigns, so the documents are unreliable. Strategic trade and tourism interests have ensured that Kwale and Kilifi’s land problems remain spectacularly unattended to.

Ujamaa’s interventions have led to the formation of networks to address this issue from a common front and in this regard the Kilifi district civil society organization, the Kilifi Farmers Forum, the Coast Social Forum and its counterparts in Kilifi and Kwale respectively add to the efforts of local level institutions such as Lamkani Majajani, Pambazuku Madevu, Mjum and Msumarini lobby groups all with the aim of building massive support for advocacy on the land issue among other natural resources. Key leadership has been roped in among them Otieno Ombok of Chem chemi ya Ukweli (Nairobi), Wanyepe of Msumarini community, Mr. Mwambi Mwasaru of the Coast Rights forum, the Kenya Land Alliance among others. The strategy is to continue generating advocacy campaigns and materials to make big noise about this important issue for policy and legal redress. It is crucial that the media becomes an integral part of the land campaign in the coast of Kenya. A proper pesentation of the land injustice mapping that the Ujamaa process has generated needs to be publicized and further studies commissioned for specific cases. Two social forums have been held in Mombasa at the 2005 agricultural show and Kilifi at which stakeholders made declarations on how they wish to deal with the injustice of land. Government has been put on notice.