Sacred Mijikenda Kaya Forests, Sacred groves in Coast Province, Kenya

The Kaya forests are a collection of roughly 50 separate wooded areas scattered across the coastal region. Each forest consists of dense woodland with clearings where ritual sites and gathering places for local communities are located.

The Mijikenda migrated to the Kenyan coast from their Shungwaya homeland to the north in the late 16th century. According to tradition the first kaya was built around 1560, and more than 300 years passed before the last one; some archaeologists place the earliest makaya in the 9th century. By the 1940s almost all had been abandoned as people moved to farms and towns, and in 2008 eleven were inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The forests remain active places where the nine Mijikenda communities conduct rituals and maintain their spiritual traditions today. Walking through them, you notice signs of ongoing practice like ritual arrangements and plants used in ceremonies.

Of the roughly 60 makaya, only Kaya Kinondo, a 30-hectare forest on Diani Beach, admits visitors, through the Kaya Kinondo Ecotourism Project launched in 2001. There a dress code applies, and visitors may not disturb plants, take photographs, speak loudly or touch one another. All other makaya remain closed to entry.

These forests function as living archives of plants and animals that have disappeared elsewhere, including rare bird and butterfly species. Their isolated locations inadvertently became natural conservation areas that preserved an original coastal ecosystem.