Forest is the most important habitat for over half of bird species in Africa. However, forests are subject to a range of threats that are leading to their widespread loss and degradation (Eshiamwata 2012). Forests provide a range of essential services, including water purification, carbon cycling and sequestration and the provision, and enrichment of soil nutrient . Consequently, the loss of forests has direct implications for people.

The Mau Forest Complex is the most important water catchment in the Rift Valley and Western Kenya. Its forests provide critical environmental services to the country: freshwater provisioning, river flow regulation, flood mitigation, recharge of ground water, erosion control, water purification, biodiversity conservation and micro-climate regulation. The ecosystem services provided by the MFC support a range of economic sectors including agriculture and tourism. The market value of the goods and services generated annually in the tea and tourism sectors alone, to which the MFC contributes, is estimated in excess of Ksh20 billion (US$ 229 million).

The MFC supplies water to urban areas and is the upper catchment area for 12 rivers that flow into five major lakes: Baringo, Nakuru, Natron, Turkana, and Victoria. Three of these lakes are international water bodies—Natron (Kenya and Tanzania), Turkana (Kenya and Ethiopia) and Victoria (Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda). The MFC provides water to the Mara and Serengeti ecosystems and is important to the water resources of the River Nile as five of its 12 major rivers feed Lake Victoria.

The pace and severity of destruction and degradation of the MFC have generated increasing concern and publicity. The restoration of the MFC is of major interest to the government of Kenya and is now a national priority. The recent politicization of the removal of encroachers from several forest blocks in the southern MFC demonstrates the importance of the ecosystem and the extent of the vested interests involved.