The Ogieks have been uncertain about the enjoyment and fulfillment of their rights and freedoms. They have been rendered squatters, and their rights to self-determination and development are violated. They are always on the verge of imminent eviction or moving from one forum to another, including international and regional human rights mechanisms seeking to assert their rights to access and reclaim Mau Forest. Through the Ministry of Environment and Forestry and Conservation NGOs, the government of Kenya has encouraged the Ogiek to accept and join Participatory Forest Management Plans (PFMP). Although the Ogiek are not opposed to such initiatives, they have not lost focus of their entitlement to regain the Mau Forest as their rightful possession.  When the Mau Forest was gazetted as a National Forest in 1974, the Ogiek were evicted from their traditional habitat without prior consultation or compensation.  They were prevented from hunting or collecting bee honey for survival in the forest and were reduced to a miserable subsistence on the margins of this area rich in plants and wildlife.  Illegal logging, the introduction of exotic plantations and the excision of parts of the forest for private development by outside settlers have endangered the Mau Forest as a water catchment area. Since then, Ogiek were repeatedly and violently evicted from their lands, their houses burnt. In 2017, the Ogiek won a landmark court case against Kenya at the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights   which should have enabled them to remain on their original lands.  However to date, the Kenyan government refused to act.  In addition, in July 2020, 600 Ogiek were evicted from their lands in breach of the 2017 judgment in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic. Ogiek houses, structures, and fences were demolished or burned to the ground and some members of the community were injured.