Kenya
About the Implementing organization
Maasai Mara Wildlife Conservancies Association
Country: Kenya
Year of establishment: 2013
Type of organization: Community-based association or organization, Legally recognized non-profit status, Indigenous group or organization
Website: http://www.maraconservancies.org
Description
The Mara-Serengeti Ecosystem is one of the last major wildlife refuges on earth, containing 40% of Africa’s remaining larger mammals. It is also home to the Maasai people – traditional pastoralists who proudly preserve their strong culture and identity. Over the last decade, progressive community-based models of conservation, ones that safeguard wildlife habitat while offering a financial lifeline for thousands of marginalized people, have been adopted in the unprotected area surrounding Kenya’s Maasai Mara National Reserve.
Maasai Mara Wildlife Conservancies Association (MMWCA) is a membership organization for these 15 Conservancies. Since MMWCA’s formation in 2013, land under such conservation has doubled to 1,420 Km2, an area almost equal to the Government-controlled National Reserve. The number of people receiving land lease payments has tripled to 13,625, with an estimated economic impact to over 100,000 people. The Conservancies themselves employ over 270 rangers, and tourism camps within them over 1,600 local residents as staff, providing additional sources of income to the community.
Under MMWCA’s leadership, there has also been notable improvements to conservancy governance and transparency, including additional gender balance in management, increased ranger training, and much needed infrastructure development.
Most critically, however, MMWCA serves as a strategic hub for designing and implementing Mara-wide improvement projects that involve multiple stakeholders. Such initiatives had previously been done on individual, uncoordinated attempts which lacked oversight and information sharing, hindering scalable outcomes. One such program is the Mara Vocational Training Program, a four-year certification program that brings together 7 existing learning centers to provide critical skill gap training to 1,800 students. The first-of-its-kind initiative is meant as a catalyst for economic empowerment throughout the Mara. Without tackling job creation alongside wildlife conservation efforts, traditional forms of support will be unsustainable in the long term.
And finally, MMWCA is focused on the future financial sustainability of the entire Mara ecosystem. As wildlife populations begin to recover, human population growth in the Mara - among the highest on the planet – presents a challenge to which dual-use conservancies, where both exist together in harmony, are the only solution. MMWCA is currently working to secure and strenghten one such dual-use conservancy, Pardamat Conservation Area (PCA), which is centrally located in the region and a key migratory route for animals. Due to its critical importance, MMWCA has been and is continuing to pay landowners to lease their land, impose cattle herd limits, and provide predator proof bomas - removing fences, restoring grass health, and guarding against human-wildlife conflict in the process.
Nature Element
Grasslands︱Drylands
Type of Action
Ecosystem protection︱Ecosystem restoration
Sustainable Development Element
Jobs and livelihoods︱Health︱Education
Related Sustainable Development Goal(s)
Environmental Impacts
Since MMWCA’s formation, the region’s land under conservation has increased from 33% to 64%. MMWCA has also secured two major wildlife corridors, supporting wildlife movements and healthy populations. In fact, recent research concluded that a total of 3,500 elephants move freely through the ecosystem, and the lion density in the Conservancies is 14% higher than in the National Reserve.
CLIMATE IMPACTS
Increased drought in the Mara ecosystem pushes wildlife further outside the National Reserve, where hundreds of thousands Maasai live and provide for their families. It also puts pressure on herders to find enough quality grass for grazing. This not only increases human-wildlife conflict but also increases the likelihood that landowners erect fences as safeguards, limiting the free movement of wildlife. MMWCA, though land lease agreements, which include controlled grazing and livestock limits while removing any existing fencing, as well as training on rangeland management, is working to combat the competition for space and resources.
Sustainable Development Impacts
Local residents make up 65-70% of employees at Tourism Camps within MMWCA’s partners. This, alongside the over 270 rangers and conservancy managers employed, is a major source of livelihood improvement. MMWCA is also a strategic partner for the Koyaki Guide School, a community-based vocational training school for guides. Additionally, MMWCA has partnered with 9 local schools to teach 450 youth in environmental conservation. MMWCA has also trained 12 conservancy managers and 159 rangers on the use of the WILD mobile application, a data collection tool designed to improve sharing and analysis of biodiversity information and human wildlife conflict. These activities show the interconnection between education, conservation, and jobs.
RESILIENCE, ADAPTABILITY, AND SELF-SUFFICIENCY
While tourism has been a driver of economic development in the region, it is vulnerable to external shocks. Thus, MMWCA is working to further improve the long term financial sustainability of the ecosystem through support for other initiatives. In Mara North conservancy and Pardamat conservation area, landowners participate in a sustainable livestock pilot program, where 290 steers have been fattened to date. The program is meant to reduce livestock numbers while upgrading the quality and commercial viability of herds. MMWCA is also supporting the Mara Conservancies to develop management plans pursuant to the Kenya Wildlife Conservation and Management Act 2013. These are invaluable documents as they minimize potential conflicts, prioritize work plans, and assist in resource allocation. 11 Conservancies have completed management plans thus far.The last 30 to 40 years have seen rapid and unequal socio-economic development in the Mara, due in part to a history of land grabbing, poor governance, corruption and a lack of transparency. A series of failed land management and ownership regimes, including communal land managed as group ranches, has left a legacy of distrust and a lack of community cohesion. After the failure of group ranches, land was subdivided among members, with a few powerful individuals amassing extensive benefits, while the majority of landowners remained disempowered and disenfranchised. Through Conservancies, however, approximately 100,000 people benefit directly from the guaranteed income generated through land-lease payments, with additional benefit provided via employment, bursaries, social development projects, and livestock consolation agreements.
REDUCED INEQUALITIES
The last 30 to 40 years have seen rapid and unequal socio-economic development in the Mara, due in part to a history of land grabbing, poor governance, corruption and a lack of transparency. A series of failed land management and ownership regimes, including communal land managed as group ranches, has left a legacy of distrust and a lack of community cohesion. After the failure of group ranches, land was subdivided among members, with a few powerful individuals amassing extensive benefits, while the majority of landowners remained disempowered and disenfranchised. Through Conservancies, however, approximately 100,000 people benefit directly from the guaranteed income generated through land-lease payments, with additional benefit provided via employment, bursaries, social development projects, and livestock consolation agreements.
GENDER EQUALITY
Under MMWCA’s leadership, 50 women have joined Landowners Committees and Boards of 12 of the 14 conservancies, enhancing inclusiveness. MMWCA has also conducted gender sensitization trainings throughout the ecosystem, and facilitated the formation of the Women’s Leader Forum, with representatives throughout the conservancies. In 2018, MMWCA arranged a two-day tour for 44 women leaders to the Northern Rangelands Trust to learn from their counterparts.
SOCIAL INCLUSION
Mara Conservancies were formed through an open, inclusive and participatory process which brought together landowners and tourism investors for mutual benefit. Conservancies are democratic institutions representative of the local community. The Maasai Mara National Reserve, meanwhile, is owned and managed by a local government authority. In the case of private conservancies, the income generated through tourism goes directly to the landowners, in the case of the National Reserve it goes to the Narok County government.
Scalability
Pardamat Conservation Area (PCA) is the only dual-use conservancy, where humans and wildlife co-exist, in Kenya. With 65% of the Nations’ wildlife living outside national parks and reserves, and increasing pressures from climate change and population growth threatening human-wildlife conflict, there is enormous potential for PCA’s model to be a catalyst for a next generation of conservation throughout East Africa. MMWCA is a founding member of Kenya Wildlife Conservancies Association (KWCA), which provides advocacy support for 160 conservancies and their over 715,000 beneficiaries.
Replicability
Community models of conservation have and will continue to deliver well documented, major development effects for local Maasai communities and for other stakeholders.
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