The Minister of the Environment, Professor Judi Wakhungu, officially launched Kenya’s Natural Capital: A Biodiversity Atlas at a breakfast ceremony in the Crowne Plaza, Nairobi, on 17th of November. The atlas was commissioned by the Ministry of the environment and produced by a team of government agencies, conservation organizations and academic institutions led by African Conservation Centre’s chairman, David Western and director, Lucy Waruingi.   




Here are some excerpts from the opening chapter of the atlas:

Kenya is known as the safari capital of the world, a place where rhinos, lions and giraffe stroll by tourist vehicles within sight of bustling downtown Nairobi.Less publicized is Kenya's majestic scenery. The nation’s rich collage of landscapes range from the Chalbi Desert in the north to the snow clad peaks of Mt. Kenya, from the white beaches of the Indian Ocean to the shores of Lake Victoria, and from the rolling plains of Maasai Mara to the floor of the Great Rift Valley. Kenya is also the foundry of varied cultures and lifestyles rooted in the productivity and diversity of its landscapes. Over forty ethnic groups spanning hunter-gatherers, herders, farmers, fishermen artisans and traders depended for eons on the providence of the land, soils, waters, plants and animals.

The interactions between topography, soils, hydrology, plants, animals and peoples within each eco-climatic zone create locally distinctive ecosystems, including forests, woodlands, shrub-lands, grasslands, deserts, wetlands, lakes and rivers, montane, afro-alpine and marine ecosystems. Kenya, ranks among the world’s richest biodiversity nations and hosts over 35 000 species, including more than 7000 plant species and many endemic, rare, endangered and threatened species.

Kenya’s Natural Capital:  A Biodiversity Atlas is a national endeavor commissioned by the Ministry of Environment, Water and Natural Resources to document the natural wealth of Kenya. The atlas gives provisional maps of Kenya's biodiversity. It explains what accounts for the richness of its ecosystems and the survival of its unique mega fauna in the 21st century. The atlas also looks at the status and threats of Kenya's biodiversity; the values it affords society; the steps taken to protect it and the challenges ahead. It further points to the need for Kenya to fully value its natural capital and provides a framework and case studies for how to do so.

Finally, the atlas points to a new vision and strategy for how Kenya can incorporate natural capital as one of the pillars of its national development alongside the economic and political pillars on which Vision 2030 is founded. It is intended above all to give Kenyans in all walks of life an atlas that recognizes and values the rich biodiversity of our country and lays the foundation for a sustainable future rooted in conservation and efficient use of natural capital. 

At the launch, the African Conservation Centre, in collaboration with the African Centre for Technological Studies, released policy briefs on the use and applications of the atlas for national policy makers, country decision-makers, the business community and learning institutions.

The atlas will be freely available online and continually updated in digital form.

By David Western

The rains finally fell heavily in Amboseli on November 17th, flooding the basin in a seven-hour deluge. I had to fly through low cloud and a steady downpour to land at the main strip. On the ground the pans had filled with water and the wildebeest had vacated the swamps and gathered on the short grass plains. Two days later most wildebeest had migrated north. I have not seen such a dramatic start to the rains in years. The previous week, the plains were sere and windswept, a few days later puddled with water and sprouting new growth.

Kenya’s Met office had been predicting the imminent onset of torrential El Niño rains since September and the government has raised emergency funds in preparation for the expected floods. The hard times in Amboseli, which I reported in October ACP news, continued into mid-November. By the time the rains came Maasai cattle were dying and over 7,000 had pushed into the park for forage. I reported that wildlife would get by because of the unexpected spread of the swamps and proliferation of new growth. Despite the delayed rains, adults wildebeest are generally in fair condition, having got a boost from the extensive grass growth at the far end of Longinye Swamp. The newly weaning calves are in far worse condition though. A few have hides turned white and staring with starvation, similar to the wildebeest dying in the 2009 drought. Their poor condition and dying livestock point to the depleted state of Amboseli pastures. And, once again, the buffalo area grazing deep in the swamp for lack of pasture. I photograph a herd of 87 buffalo grazing up to their bellies in the swamps with infants barely keeping above water.

The pressure on Amboseli speaks to the far bigger threat of rangeland degradation in Eastern Africa and the rising frequency of drought (download article here). However good the El Niño rains, the recovery of the rangeland will be sharply depressed by heavy grazing. The carryover effect spells hard times for pastoralist and their livestock and growing conflict with wildlife.  

Rebecca Kariuki is a PhD student at the University of York, UK researching on the interaction between ecosystems, climate and societies in East African rangelands.  Prior to commencement of her PhD she worked at ACP on plant size structured ecosystems. She joins ACP on 6 months secondment, starting October 2015 to continue working on the size structure of plant in relation to the main variables driving savanna vegetation types in Kenya. Additional details on her research can be found http://www.york.ac.uk/environment/our-staff/rebecca-kariuki/

The restoration of the Amboseli ecosystem following years of habitat loss and pasture degradation took a step forward in the last month with funding from the NAGA Foundation. Under the Global Environmental Facility grant awarded to KWS and partnering organizations to restore and sustain Amboseli’s biodiversity, funds are allocated for recovering woodland habitats in the park. The GEF grant has, however, been delayed, awaiting the appointment of a new director of KWS. The NAGA grant is timely, not only in setting up woodland restoration plots immediately, but also in expanding the restoration plan to include more woodland sites and address the far more serious problem of rangeland degradation across the ecosystem. The NAGA grant is issued to the Amboseli Ecosystem Trust, supported by ACP, ACC and Kenya Wildlife Service.

The lack of red tape in the NAGA grant allowed us to move quickly in locating three woodlands restoration plots and setting up a number of grassland recovery sites around heavily degraded Maasai settlements.
Two woodland plots span the park boundary and include portions of the adjoining group ranch, where they will protect the Amboseli Ecosystem Trust’s Nongotiak Resource Centre from heavy grazing, and the Kitirua Hills spring from trampling by livestock. In barely a month the sites were selected, the fence designs drawn up, the tenders awarded on a competitive basis and construction underway. Two of the woodlands plots are now operational in time to benefit from the rains. In showing Carolyn Greene of African Conservation Centre-US the newly complete Kitirua recovery plot, she was fortunate to catch a bull elephant demonstrating his wariness of the fence (see African Conservation Centre-US)

The grassland restoration plots are based on the traditional Maasai olopololi, thorn exclosures located close to settlements to keep out adult stock and reserve a grass bank for calves in the dry season. ACC, working with Maasai women on Mbirikani Group Ranch near Amboseli at the height of the 2009, set up an olopololi that has since restored the grasslands, provided fodder for calves and grown enough seed to sell the surplus (http://www.accafrica.org/).
The olopololi program has the potential to grow rapidly as a Maasai home-grown solution to pasture conservation and management. A similar program has been adopted by the Il Polei and Munushoi communities in the Mukogodo region of Laikipia (http://www.accafrica.org/).

NAGA, in collaboration with AET, ACC and ACP, is also looking into arresting the heavy soil erosion on the Eremito Ridge where permanent settlements have degraded the grasslands and created heavy riling and gullying. 

Restoring the wood habitats and grassland of the Amboseli ecosystem will take many years and call for a broad collaborative effort between the Maasai communities, conservation organizations, the Kajiado Council, safari operators, KWS and other government agencies dealing with livestock and water. On 11th November, the various parties met in Amboseli and agreed to set up a restoration group under the Amboseli Ecosystem Trust to design and oversee a restoration program for the ecosystem. The strongest support came from the Maasai representing the group ranches surrounding Amboseli and spanning the ecosystem.