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

People

In 1997 Professor Nigel Leader-Williams (Director of DICE) received funding from the Darwin Initiative for the Survival of Species to establish the Mara programme.

Project manager: Dr Matt Walpole

The programme has been managed and developed since 1998 by Dr Matt Walpole, a 31 year-old postdoctoral research associate and Darwin Initiative Fellow at DICE. Matt is a conservation biologist with over a decade of multidisciplinary research, project management and consultancy experience in conservation and development in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

For more details click here.

Counterparts, students and staff:

A number of Kenyan counterparts have worked with the programme as both students and staff. Many are still involved with the programme, whilst others are working with other conservation and research organisations. Click on the names below to find out more.

Dr Noah Sitati

Dr Geoffrey Karanja

Stephen Kisotu

Resiato Martyn

Charles Matankory

Leonard Seme

Moriaso Nabaala

Phillip Bett

Belinda Stewart-Cox

Dr Noah Sitati

Having completed a MPhil at Moi University (Kenya) on land use change in the Mara ecosystem, Noah joined the programme is 1998 as a PhD student at DICE. He studied human-elephant conflict in Transmara, developing close ties with local communities and Kenya Wildlife Service. Noah continues to work in the programme as a field co-ordinator, testing human-elephant conflict mitigation strategies and managing a team of community scouts. He completed his PhD viva in March 2003, and was awarded a prize for the best presentation at the Student Conference of Conservation Science at the University of Cambridge in the same month. As a result of his work on the programme, Noah has recently been elected a member of the IUCN/SSC African Elephant Specialist Group.

Dr Geoffrey Karanja

Geoffrey joined the programme in 1998 as a PhD student on secondment from the Department of Wildlife Management at Moi University, Eldoret. He studied the ecological impacts and management of tourism within the Masai Mara National Reserve. One of the major outputs of his work was to quantify the spread of off-road tracks within the Reserve through detailed mapping in 1991 and 1999. He also focused on tourism disturbance of herbivores, which has in the past been overshadowed by concerns for carnivores. Geoffrey completed his PhD viva in January 2003, and as a result has been promoted to a lecturer at Moi University. He continue to collaborate with programme staff on data analysis and publications.

Stephen Kisotu

Stephen is a Maasai community representative from the eastern part of the ecosystem in Narok District. Having trained and worked locally as a headmaster, Stephen was selected by the community as their choice to take up a MSc place at DICE in September 2001. Stephen completed his studies in Conservation Biology in September 2002, and since then has remained with the programme coordinating a team of community scouts in his home area of Naikarra and Olderkessi locations, between the Masai Mara and the Loita Hills. His scouts are monitoring human-wildlife conflict, with a particular focus on predators. He is also working closely in the field with Kenya Wildlife Service and Friends of Conservation.

Resiato Martyn

Resiato (pictured far right) is also a trained teacher and a Maasai. She joined the programme in May 2001 as a community representative, and began a MSc at DICE in September 2001. Resiato has focused on Tourism and Conservation, completing her MSc and a baseline study of local awareness and expectations in September 2002. Since then she has facilitated a community study tour to investigate other examples of community-based tourism around Kenya, and has coordinated a number of community meetings to discuss and develop ideas for the development of tourism.

Charles Matankory

Charles is an extremely experienced field assistant who has worked closely with all the other members of the programme. A Maasai from western Kenya, Charles began working for Friends of Conservation on the Masai Mara Ecological Monitoring Programme in 1993. He has continued working on this programme through its various incarnations as a FoC project, a WWF project and, from 1998-2001, a DICE-coordinated project. During that time Charles was employed by the DICE Mara programme to continue the ecological monitoring but also to assist field staff with other aspects of our work. He worked most closely with Geoffrey Karanja (tourism impacts), Matt Walpole (black rhinos and vegetation monitoring) and Morris Nabaala (browser competition). Charles has been our keystone in the field, providing an outstanding level of support. Currently back with WWF, Charles continues to liaise with programme staff from his base at Talek on the border of the Reserve.

Leonard Seme

Leonard is a Maasai junior elder in Lepolosi area, Transmara District. He has worked as a field assistant to Noah Sitati since 1999. Leonard established, and is chairman of the Lepolosi Community Forest and Wildlife Association. He is working closely with community scouts monitoring conflict, and working to raise local awareness of forest and wildlife conservation and the role of tourism and other alternative livelihoods in community development.

Moriasso Nabaala

‘Morris’ came to DICE as a MSc student in September 1999 on secondment from the Koyiaki-Lemek Wildlife Trust where he was operations manager. He remained with the programme for two years, completing a MSc in Conservation Biology and then spending a year studying browser competition in the Reserve. He has since returned to Koyiaki group ranch, to the north of he Reserve, where he now works on the development of a local Maasai guiding school designed to assist local community members to participate in the tourism industry.

Phillip Bett

Sergeant Phillip Bett was a warden and ranger in the Masai Mara National Reserve for over twenty years. For much of this he coordinated the rhino patrol unit within the Reserve. He was extremely dedicated, spending many hours a day in the field alongside his team of rangers, as well as liaising with government and non-government stakeholders. Phillip worked closely with Matt on ranger training and data collection between 1998 and 2000, and together they presented the details of the Mara rhino research and monitoring at a national planning workshop in September 2000 where a new 5-year strategic plan for Kenya’s rhinos was developed.

Sadly, Phillip passed away in hospital in early 2003 after a short illness. His dedication and passion for rhinos, and his personal support and friendship, will be greatly missed by many.

Belinda Stewart-Cox

Belinda (pictured centre) has over fifteen years experience of community-based conservation in Thailand, with a particular focus on elephants. She joined DICE and a MSc student in September 2001, studying Tourism and Conservation. For her dissertation, Belinda worked with Noah and Leonard on a pre-feasibility study for tourism in Lepolosi that involved interviewing community-members, tourists, tour operators and NGOs. This outstanding piece of work earned her a distinction in her MSc and the opportunity to return to Kenya in 2003 to continue her work with the Lepolosi community. She is currently writing up the findings of her latest visit to Kenya.