MORE than 200 peasant farmers in Kenya’s Tana River district are to be relocated from their ancestral land to create room for the Red Colubus and Crested Mangabey monkeys, the Kenya Wildlife Services (KWS) announced at the weekend. In return, 247 of 330 families moved out of the 166-square kilometre Tana River Primate National Reserve, will be given residential houses in a settlement scheme. Some of the banana- and corn-farming peasants are reluctant to move from the fertile land, however, and accuse the KWS of being more concerned with the plight of monkeys than of people. “We are against everything that has happened. We will never leave,” said Seth Ablo, a 76-year-old man who has farmed on the land all his life. He represents about 100 families who are reluctant to move out of the reserve. – African Eye News Service