TRANS MARA FOREST

Trans Mara District had been originally hived-off Narok County in 1994, covering an area of 2,842 km2.Both the Mara Triangle and the Trans Mara Forest were part of the district which had its centre at Kilgoris. In 2010, under the new constitution, Trans Mara was restored back to Narok.Bomet County butts up against a long stretch of the great Mau Forest Complex, home to a variegated array of flora and fauna including the rare Yellow Backed Duicker that is endemic to the 2773 km2 Mau. The 344 km2 Trans Mara Forest is an outlying part of the Mau Complex, which encompasses seven forest zones of Mau Narok, Maasai Mau, Eastern and Western Mau, South and South West Mau and Bomet’s Trans Mara Forest. Nyakweri Forest is the largest remaining forest section of Trans Mara District and forms part of the dispersal area of the Maasai Mara National Reserve. Despite its faunal interest of 200 bird species and 50 animal species, both Trans Mara and the Mau itself are underdeveloped for tourism. It was gazetted in 1941 as a Forest Reserve. Still and all, most of its forests have been the subject of wanton defacing and sullying. Unique to Trans Mara Forest, one of the spry closed-canopy forests in Kenya, is that its integrity is part thanks to the Maasai: “In their simplistic and unsophisticated existence, they treat forests as a gem, just as they do their livestock that they regard as the source of life itself”. Today, though not armed, the Saparingo rangers of Trans Mara Forest opt for participatory dialogue when engaging with the community.