Engaging communities to protect and secure space for wildlife

Over 70% of Kenya’s wildlife is found outside of formally protected areas, on community land. As the communities living on these lands often lack the capacity to protect wildlife, the survival of Kenya’s wildlife is under threat. By putting communities and their traditional ways first, empowered pastoralist communities can create a safe space for wildlife and can reduce human-wildlife conflict.

Header photo: Masai © Penny van Beek

Problem

The Maasai, a local pastoral community of the Kenyan South Rift, have coexisted with wildlife for centuries. Their traditional way of moving with their livestock prevents land degradation and permanent settlements, providing a landscape in which both people and wildlife can thrive. But much of the traditional range of these communities has been lost to immigrant communities through land subdivision and young Maasai now opt for formal education over traditional herding, as pressure to diversify income sources is high. The waning of the traditional Maasai cultural values and knowledge poses a serious threat to the future of wildlife. 

Over 70% of Kenya’s wildlife is found outside of formally protected areas, on community land. The communities living on these lands generally lack the capacity to protect wildlife as a resource. Poaching, the bush meat trade, human-wildlife conflict retaliations and the increasing trade in various animal and plant products threaten the survival of Kenya’s wildlife. In Kenya’s Loita hills, 100 elephants were killed over the course of 2010-2014, with a peak in 2012.

Approach

IUCN NL’s partner organization SORALO (South Rift Association of Land Owners) represents a large percentage of wildlife-rich community land. By putting communities and traditional ways first, empowered pastoralist communities can create a safe space for wildlife and can reduce human-wildlife conflict. Therefore SORALO supports the traditional pastoral mechanisms of natural resource management.

SORALO strengthens the mutual understanding between the wildlife authority and communities and promotes collaboration in so-called Conflict Rapid Response Units. These are teams composed of local scouts, young Maasai resource assessors and rangers from the Kenya Wildlife Services. Together, they carry out daily patrols within the group ranch, looking for any signs of poaching and illegal timber harvesting, and act as mediators if any human-wildlife incidents arise. The units are responsible for arresting poachers, rescuing wounded animals, protecting threatened animals, controlling human-wildlife conflict and collecting scientific data on biodiversity.

Result

By joining forces, the trust between communities and wildlife authorities is restored. Together, local scouts, Maasai and the Kenyan Wildlife Service can adequately respond to human-wildlife conflict and wildlife crime events. They help to mitigate human-wildlife conflicts, which helps to reduce poaching, also in neighboring ecosystems. The approach offers the young Maasai youth the opportunity to make a living as scouts while at the same time protecting their heritage. 

After introducing community scouts in the upper and lower Loita region, elephant poaching incidents dropped by 85% (compared to the 2010 – 2014 period), with only 3 elephants killed in 2016.