By David Western, David Maitumo and Victor Mose
 
2017 saw a continuing recovery of Amboseli wildlife numbers after the precipitous losses in 2008, as shown in Figure 1.  The slow recovery of zebra and wildebeest, held in check by predation until 2012, began to accelerate through to 2017 once the herds resumed their strong seasonal migrations. Zebra and wildebeest numbers tracked each other closely throughout the recovery. The downturn in the 2017 dry season may reflect fewer animals returning to the basin rather than a decline in population. Buffalo numbers remained low until 2015 when the herds began migrating with the rains to avoid heavy predation pressure and now stand at three quarters of their pre-drought levels.

Elephant numbers which peaked at around 550 in the Amboseli Basin in the late 1980s following a concentration in the park following the heavy poaching of the 1970s, declined steadily to a low of 300 at the beginning of the 2009 drought. After the loss of over 400 animals, the elephant numbers returned to a high of over 550, then fell strongly to an all-time low of a little over 200 with the resumption of drought in 2017 when little forage remained in the swamps.

Sheep and goat numbers climbed to 179,000 by November 2017 when ACP commissioned a count of the Amboseli ecosystem, considerably down from a peak of 341,000 in 2016.  Cattle numbers are also down after peaking in 2016, from 127,000 to 55,000. ACP uses many indicators to track and anticipate severe conditions. In addition to the numbers of wildlife and livestock, other measures include pasture abundance, the body condition and milk yields of cattle (Figure 2) and market prices (Figure 3) which slump in times of drought.
​
Taken collectively the data show the build-up of wildlife numbers and recovery of livestock condition after the 2009 drought and point to a repeat severe drought setting in late 2016 and early 2017. The declining conditions are reflected in livestock milk yields, body condition and market prices. Result are not yet in from mortality figures but for cattle are likely to be around 40 percent so far.

The 2017 short rains were forecast to be good and widespread but have been desultory and scattered over much of southern Kenya, including Amboseli. Large numbers of zebra and wildebeest carcasses have been counted around the Amboseli swamps. With the paltry rains and failure of grass to recover after years of heavy grazing, the drought conditions are likely to become extremely severe before the long rains of April 2018. 

​By David Western
 
The newly appointed governor is Joseph Ole Lenku, former Cabinet Secretary Defense and highly influential in the Kenyatta government. His tenure sees a virtual clean sweep for Jubilee Party in Kajiado. Hon Lenku is from the Amboseli area and no stranger to the issues there, especially the human-wildlife conflict and suffering of pastoralist in droughts. He came out with a scathing indictment in a two-page piece in the press of wildlife conservationists ignoring the suffering of pastoralists and farmers. The article sent ripples through the NGO sector and KWS. Fortunately, I got to see him shortly after his induction, accompanied by Benson Laiyan, coordinator of the Amboseli Ecosystem Trust, chairman of the Trust, Daniel Lolteris, a close ally of Lenku’s. Jackson Mwato and Johnson Sipitiek, both ACC community officers.
 
Over the course of an hour I was able to explain to the governor the collaborative efforts in Amboseli and how the community, with its NGO partners and KWS, is addressing the very issues he raised. I also pointed out the underlying causes of the recurring droughts being grazing pressure, and the need to institute land use plans, grazing plans, restoration efforts and livestock development and marketing programs. The governor was persuaded, it seems, especially by the inputs from the Amboseli community. He has agreed to come down and launch the women’s milk cooperative ACC set up and the Nongotiak Resource Centre. He has since taken on Benson Laiyan, Coordinator of the Amboseli Ecosystem Trust, as his right-hand person on project delivery.  Benson made a start on the governor’s promise of support by bringing down the new county head of Lands and Livestock to an AET meeting last week. The governor’s support holds promise of getting solid attention to the land, grazing management and degradation issues the previous administration had difficulty tackling. He has announced that he will set aside all country holdings as grass banks for supplementary fodder during droughts.

By David Western

Land subdivision and permanent settlement

The biggest threat to the viability of the Amboseli ecosystem and the free-ranging wildlife herds of East African savanna ecosystems in general is land subdivision. I have raised concerns in published articles based on the Amboseli long-term monitoring program showing the impact of subdivision of group ranches on habitat and wildlife (2009’ Western, D Groom, R and Worden, J. The impact of land subdivision and sedentarization of pastoralist on wildlife in an African savanna ecosystem. Biological Conservation 142: 2538-2546; 2013. Groom, R.J. and Western, D. The impact of land subdivision and sedentarization on wildlife in Kenya’s southern Rangelands. Rangeland Ecology and Management 66(1): 1-9).

The threat grew with the clamor for subdivision on the group ranches across the Amboseli ecosystem. Fortunately, the large fallout from the resale of Maasai lands resulting from the subdivision of Kimana Group Ranch led Maasai leaders to call a halt and take stock of other land use options. The halt led to Mbirikani asking ACP and ACC to draw up land use plans for the group ranch. ACC raised the funds from GEF to conduct the land use plan, and Big Life funds from the same sources to conduct a grazing plan. ACC employed rangeland consultants to conduct the plan working closely with ACP. The plan was completed in September and is awaiting ratification from the group ranch committee. ACP contributed most of the background data. ACP also played a lead role in recommendations for the grazing plan, based on traditional seasonal movements and grass banks governed by grazing committees. The grazing plan is in draft stage ready for group ranch review.

In a serendipitous development, the recent Community Land Act halts all further subdivision of group ranches, pending registration of all members, including women. The registration of women will in itself put a break on subdivision. Further, the Act calls for all group ranches to draw up land use plans. This puts the Mbirikani land use and grazing plan ahead of the curve and an example for others to follow. Selengei Group Ranch has also approached ACC to conduct a land use plan of the ranch and the exercise is underway. ACP is providing the background and framework for the planning exercise. With land use and grazing plans underway on Mbirikani and Selengei and Ololorashi Ogului scheduled to follow, most of the Amboseli ecosystem will be under formal land use plans, which will be incorporated into the Amboseli Ecosystem Management Plan 2018-2018 scheduled for review in 2018.

The county governments are, under the new constitution, mandated to do spatial planning. The 2008-2018 Amboseli Ecosystem Management Plan was formally adopted by the Kajiado County and gazetted by the Attorney General’s Chambers. AEMP, the first of its kind, is viewed as a model for other ecosystem development plans and has been adopted by KWS as a framework for wildlife planning around and beyond parks. The new governor of Kajiado has given his backing for the land use planning exercises. He has also announced that the county will zone the district into areas for settlement, agriculture and livestock-wildlife use and prohibit the sale of the mixed-use rangelands. This is excellent news and just the step needed to halt the subdivision of the rangelands.

In a further promising development, the range lands division I have been pushing for AET to establish to oversee the planning and integration of all aspects of livestock and wildlife development was approved by the board of AET in November. I was appointed interim chairperson to give direction and weight to the new division. We held our first meeting on December 7th. The division will encourage and oversee land use plans, grazing management, water plans, livestock improvement schemes, the newly established Women’s Milk Cooperative, marketing, range land restoration and outreach programs for the group ranches under AET. The county and central government range lands officers will set as ex-officio members on the board.

By David Western
​
The degradation of pasture documented by the ACP long-term monitoring program is widespread across the Kenya and northern Tanzania rangelands. The Dutch group NAGA funded AET in collaboration with ACC and ACP, to conduct a pilot restoration program on the group ranches using the traditional Maasai olopololi method of grass banks, as reported in the year-end LCAOF report for 2016 and on the ACP website. The pilot program was considered extremely successful and formed the centerpiece of a NAGA submission to the Rabobank in Holland to fund a multi-year restoration program in Kenya, Tanzania and Brazil. I met up with the Rabobank assessment team in September and gave a background to rangelands degradation in Kenya and the steps for restoration. The NAGA group (now called JustDiggit) won the award against a very competitive set of submissions. The group advanced a $70,000 grant ACC and AET in October to set up an interim program and draw up a long-term ecosystem-wide program by March. The JustDiggit team met with AET, ACC, ACP and other NGOs on December 8th to draw up a schedule for completing a detailed restoration plan. The restoration plan will be a multi-year initiative covering the Amboseli ecosystem, south rift and adjoining Tanzania borderlands. The program, to be launched in May 2018, will be overseen by ACC and managed by AET and conservation partners.  
            .
In another development, the governor of Kajiado, following the details I gave him on the cause and extent of degradation across the county, has announced he will use all the county’s land holdings as grass banks to provide hay during droughts. The Maasai across Kajiado were buying substandard hay at exorbitant prices from Western Kenya over the last three months.
 
The magnitude of pasture degradation is finally being acknowledged as a national disaster underlying cause of dislocation and conflict between neighboring tribes in northern Kenya and the deepening the conflict with wildlife. In 2017 the Kenya government signed onto the AFR 100 Pan-African agreement recognizing the severity of land degradation. It has committed itself to restoring 5.3 million hectares of rangeland. The World Resources Institute (WRI) assisted the government in identifying potential restoration sites and is using the Amboseli program as a template for scaling up nationally. WRI is keen to work with ACC in designing the national program. I gave a talk to WRI in Washington DC in October and suggested the need for a national restoration strategy, modelled on the National Wildlife Conservation Strategy the ACC is coordinating on behalf of the Ministry of Environment. WRI partnered ACC’s preparation of Kenya’s Natural Capital: A Biodiversity Atlas. As a follow up of the October meeting, WRI will fund ACC to draw up a national restoration strategy under the Ministry of the Environment and in collaboration with the Rangeland Association of Kenya.