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

Masai Mara National Reserve

The Masai Mara National Reserve (MMNR) is a 1,510 km protected area in south-west Kenya. It is part of the world famous Serengeti-Mara ecosystem that covers over 25,000 km2 of Maasai land in Kenya and Tanzania. Lying at an altitude of c.1600 m, it is an area of undulating grassland savanna bisected by the Mara River.

MMNR is best known for its annual wildebeest and zebra migration that arrives from the southern plains of the Serengeti every July. This often comprises over one million animals that remain in the Reserve for several months over the dry season, before crossing the Mara River and returning to the Serengeti when the rains return.

The migration and the many other herbivores that reside in MMNR year round provide food for a wide range of large carnivores, including lion, hyaena, leopard and cheetah. This area supports one of the highest densities of large carnivores in Africa. Whilst this is a major draw for international tourists, it creates problems for local Maasai communities, whose livestock may be attacked by predators. This is one of the issues that we are currently examining. For more information, click here.

Within its enormous diversity of mammal species, MMNR includes a number of endangered species. Most well known are the African elephant and the black rhino. Elephants are doing very well in and a round the Reserve, and their population currently numbers around 1500. In parts of the ecosystem where small-scale cultivation takes place elephants represent a major problem for local communities. They regularly raid fields of ripe maize just prior to harvest, destroying local livelihoods and placing people at risk of injury and death. This reduces local tolerance of elephants that are themselves injured and killed as a result. We have been studying this problem, and testing novel solutions to it, since 1998. For more information, click here.