Wildlife and People:
Conflict & Conservation in Masai Mara, Kenya

Communities

If the costs of living with wildlife are reduced, and if the correct linkages are made between local livelihoods and the continued conservation of wildlife and its habitat, then local people are more likely to tolerate and conserve wildlife.

We are working closely with communities in Narok District to the south-east of the Masai Mara, and in Transmara District to the north-west, to put this concept into practice.

To find out more about these communities, click on the links below.

Naikarra/Olderkessi communities (Narok District)
Lepolosi community (Transmara District)

In both areas we have been training community coordinators and recruiting community members to monitor human-wildlife conflict. Ten community scouts in each area have been trained to collect standardised information from conflict incidents taking pace in their areas of responsibility. They have all been issued with GPS units to record the geographical location of such incidents in order to enable mapping and spatial analysis of the factors determining the distribution and occurrence of conflict.

Through involvement in the programme, communities themselves are building their understanding of conflict and ways to deal with it.

We are also working to build local institutional capacity with regard to tourism. Both areas that we are working in have significant potential for tourism, as noted in a field evaluation conducted by Jake Grieves-Cooke, a specialist in community-based conservation and chairman of the Ecotourism Society of Kenya, who was invited to visit both areas to talk with communities and explore the options available to them. Jake and others also hosted members of both communities during study trips to other areas is Kenya where community-based conservation is being used as a tool for conservation and local development.

Naikarra/Olderkessi communities

Naikarra and Olderkessi group ranches lie to the south east of the Masai Mara, between the Reserve and the Loita Hills. These are unadjudicated areas, which means that the land is not actually owned by the communities, but is held in trust by the Narok County Council.

The area comprises Maasai pastoral communities principally from the Purko clan, that number approximately 14,000 individuals in an area of approximately 700 km2. Within the area, four separate groups are working to establish community associations for wildlife conservation and natural resource management. Within Naikarra group ranch, the Olpua Trust has recently been established with a constitution and membership list. Two other groups are following suit. In Olderkessi group ranch the Olomanaa community is in the process of becoming registered. Our community representatives, Stephen Kisotu and Resiato Martyn, are coordinating the Olderkessi/Naikarra community-Conservation and Tourism Initiative (ONCCTI), a kind of umbrella body that is working with all four communities to assist them in the development of sustainable tourism and natural resource management.

The area is relatively arid with numerous bushy hills. There is currently little cultivation, and livestock provides the main form of livelihood. As a result, predation of livestock by large carnivores such as leopard and hyaena is the most significant human-wildlife conflict. The area still contains a remnant black rhino population. In addition, African wild dog are being increasingly sighted in the area. We are working with wildlife scouts employed by Friends of Conservation to monitor the wild dogs in an attempt to understand their movement patterns and interactions with people.

As communities gain a greater understanding of wildlife distribution and conflict patterns, they are developing plans to set aside conservation areas of their own for wildlife and tourism.

Lepolosi community

Our work on human-wildlife conflict in Transmara District, to the north west of the Masai Mara, spans an area of over 1000 km2. Much of the area is an upland mosaic of Afromontane forest, acacia woodland and grassland. Traditionally populated by the pastoral Siria Maasai, the are is also home to Moitanik and Uasin Gishu Maasai, and is becoming increasingly settled by other tribes who have brought cultivation to the area. Much of the original forest cover has been lost to subsistence and commercial maize farming, and the human population density is relatively high.

This is an area where elephant crop raiding is a significant problem. Our community scouts have been working hard to monitor this issue and test novel mitigation methods.

Within Transmara District we have been working especially closely with the Lepolosi community, near the town of Logorien. This community has formed a forest and wildlife association to explore alternative livelihoods, including tourism.

Moreover, this area is a significant cultural site for the Maasai morans, or warrior age set. The morans traditionally wander widely, hunting and living off the land. Thus they have an intimate knowledge of their environment and the wildlife.

In Lepolosi, we are working with a group of Morans who are operating as wildlife security scouts, providing information on poaching incidents and uncovering caches of illegal ivory.