I did another aerial count of the Amboseli National Park and basin on 29th September and was thrilled to see so many animals around the swamps, the most I have seen since before the drought of 2009. Buffalo numbers are now above 300, half way to their pre-drought level. Zebra and wildebeest numbers are recovering somewhat faster and are two thirds back to their pre-drought numbers. Though still far short of full recovery, the tightly concentrated herds around the permanent swamps in the late dry season make Amboseli one of the greatest wildlife spectacles in Africa.
 
Despite the recovery so far, the longer term outlook for Amboseli’s wildlife is far from secure. I only counted 358 elephants, down sharply from earlier in the season. With some 1,300 elephants dispersed out of the park and farmers and herders facing a harsh season, conflict has become the biggest hurdle to conserving elephants in Amboseli. The falling numbers in the park reflect their heavy grazing impact on the swamps. The sedges have been grazed down all along Simek and over most of Longinye Swamp. Open water and green weeds now dominate the wetlands. The open water is still expanding and has pushed fresh floods northwards alongside the Namanga Road.
 
On the downside, I counted nearly 7,000 cattle and over 1,000 sheep and goats in the park, the biggest influx in many years. Several herds had pushed into the middle of Longinye swamp, others were scattered across Kalunyet and large herds were watering in the park. The long rains in southern Kenya were below average and the weak rebound due to heavy grazing has created an acute shortage of pasture. Tens of thousands of cattle, sheep and goats have pushed deep into Tsavo West National Park and the Chyulus Hills.
 
The pressure on Amboseli will continue to mount even with good rains. The influx of livestock has rapidly depleted the abundant grass reserves at the start of the dry season. If not for the flooding and new growth in the swamps, this season would be harsh for zebra and wildebeest too.
 
I anticipate that with livestock numbers fully recovered from the 2009 drought due in part to animals purchased and imported from elsewhere, the pressure on Amboseli will thwart a full wildlife recovery and raise the specter of another drought. The reasons why, are explained in the following news section on the growing causes of drought in Amboseli.   

Pastoralists across the East African savannas are reporting more frequent and deeper droughts, leading to social disruption, growing poverty and deepening conflict with wildlife. Climate change has widely been cited as the cause of worsening droughts.

Is there evidence to support the rising incidence of drought, and if so, what are the causes and remedies?

Drought predictions and early warning systems depend largely on indirect measures based on satellite tracking of green vegetation and rainfall measures and predictions. Neither method has been tested against long term measurements of actual pasture abundance, or the severity of droughts for livestock and wildlife. How well do these drought predictions perform?

Twenty grassland plots in Amboseli measured each month by ACP since 1975 provide a good test of the accuracy of drought predictions. A study, published in PLoS ONE (download here) in August 28 2015 by David Western, Victor Mose and David Maitumo, concludes that neither satellite imagery nor rainfall measures satisfactorily predict extreme droughts. The grazing pressure by livestock and wildlife is far more important in dictating the shortage of forage and severity of droughts.
 
The study also shows that pasture shortfalls are increasing in frequency and intensity due to grazing pressure have risen nearly three-fold in the past 35 years. Although rainfall has not fallen significantly, grass production per unit of rainfall has fallen by a third, causing a sharp drop in livestock and wildlife production. The causes are explained by the loss of grazing lands to farms, water diversion and permanent settlement leading to the year-round grazing of pastures.
 
We conclude that the remedies largely lie with herders through better rangeland governance, herding practices based on traditional migratory movements, and grazing rotation (see Better grazing practices hold key to Kenya drought. SciDev.Net. 5 August 2011). Collaborative grazing practices and land use planning are now the focus of ACC’s conservation work with group ranches in Amboseli and the South Rift.
 
Just as important, the Amboseli study shows that regular rangeland monitoring such as David Maitumo conducts in Amboseli each month can be conducted simply and rapidly by community resource assessors using simple methods. The information feeds back directly to herding committees, allowing them to take stock of pasture conditions, anticipate extreme droughts and plan their responses

The booklet on Community-Based Natural Resource Management: Creating an Enabling Policy Environment in Kenya was launched by the Cabinet Secretary for the Environment, Professor Judi Wakhungu, at a colorful ceremony at the Lale’enok Resource Centre in the South Rift on 11th October 2015 . The booklet (see Library) summarizes the findings of a meeting of Southern and Eastern African countries held in December 2013. The meeting drew on 30 years of African experience in Collaborative Natural Resource Management to highlight successful practices and chart the way forward for a Community Bases Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) policy for Kenya. Commissioned by the Ministry of the Environment, funded by NORAD through WWF and by the Liz Claiborne Art Ortenberg Foundation, the meeting was organized by ACC and ACP. The meeting of African practitioners and scholars concluded that CBNRM, based on traditional practices and community-based conservation in Africa, is fast becoming a worldwide practice.

The Lale’enok Community Resource Centre was chosen as the launch site of the booklet to highlight the steps communities have taken to conserve and manage their own resources (www.soralo.org).  The meeting was attended by the Deputy Governor of Kajiado, Paul Ntiati, senior representatives of the Kenya Forest Service and Kenya Wildlife Service, political leaders, community leaders and a large gathering from the local community.
 
At a round table discussion hosted by ACC after the formal launch of the booklet, the Cabinet Secretary agreed to the group’s recommendations. This entailed setting up a desk officer in the Ministry of Environment to coordinate natural resource management among ministries and a small working group, headed up by ACC and WWF, to assist the Ministry in addressing the policy recommendations of the CBNRM booklet. A national forum is to be convened by NGOs and community-based organizations to discuss the elements of a national CBNRM policy.

ACC hosted the annual international Biodiversity Informatics (TDWG) Congress at the Windsor Golf Hotel in Nairobi between September 28th and October 1st. The meeting highlighted advances in biodiversity informatics tools and the integration and application of large databases for biodiversity conservation and community development. Lucy Waruingi, Director of ACC and David Western, Director of ACP, gave a keynote address on Building biodiversity knowledge from the ground up: Tools and approaches at a local, regional and national level, applied in Kenya to document and understand Kenya’s biodiversity.
Dr. Victor Mose, Deputy Director of ACP also hosted a special session on the use of camera traps and other tools for conservation. Information on the conference and talk can be found here