Baringo District residents had argued during a one-year legal battle that Prosopis Juliflora, known locally as Mathenge weed, had spread rapidly and that its thorns caused the paralysis of limbs in humans and livestock.
NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenya's High Court has ruled that the government must compensate farmers affected by a poisonous, thorny shrub that was introduced to their remote region more than two decades ago, local media said on Wednesday.
Baringo District residents had argued during a one-year legal battle that Prosopis Juliflora, known locally as Mathenge weed, had spread rapidly and that its thorns caused the paralysis of limbs in humans and livestock.
The High Court gave a technical commission 60 days to assess the environmental impact and losses suffered by the villagers.
"The court has decided that the environmental well-being of people is the same as human rights," the farmer's lawyer, Thomas Letangule, told journalists after the verdict on Tuesday.
!ADVERTISEMENT!It was not immediately clear how much the government might have to pay in compensation after the commission reported, and government officials made no immediate comment on the ruling.
The government introduced the plant more than 20 years ago to try to slow deforestation in Baringo, north-central Kenya.
(Reporting by Daniel Wallis; editing by Elizabeth Piper)
