By David Western, Victor Mose and David Maitumo
 
We began regularly counting wildlife in the Amboseli Basin in 2009 in anticipation of the severe drought in the course of the year. The counts of 700 square kilometer Amboseli Basin were designed to catalogue the drought and subsequent recovery in far greater detail than we could glean from the large-scale aerial counts of the 8,500 square kilometer ecosystem censuses once a year. The ground counts of live and dead animals proved timely.
The wildlife and livestock losses to drought in 2009 became so alarming that we convened an emergency meeting in of the Amboseli Ecosystem Trust, Kenya Wildlife Service and conservation organizations in December 2009. At the meeting we presented the extreme drought losses: over 95 of the wildebeest and two thirds of the zebra and cattle died, died in the preceding few months. The two hundred remaining wildebeest of the 6,000 at the start of the year were in imminent risk of extinction. We also forecast heavy predation on cattle around Amboseli National Park once wildlife left on migrations. Unfortunately, our warnings went unheeded and many lions were killed by herders suffering heavy cattle losses.
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The unexpected good news is that wildlife bounced back far faster than the slow recovery we projected due to heavy predation on the small surviving herds, by 2020 wildlife numbers had recovered, and even exceeded those at the start of 2009. The graph below shows the strong recovery of wildebeest and zebra between the 2009 and 2014. Buffalo, which seldom migrated in the rains, suffered far heavier predation than zebra and wildebeest and were slower to bounce back but had also recovered their pre-drought levels by 2017.  

​The faster than expected recovery from the extreme drought of 2009 resulted from a fortuitous influx of wildebeest and zebra from Tsavo National Park and Ngaserai in Tanzania. Had the links to these wildlife areas been cut off, Amboseli’s wildlife would have taken years longer to recover, and wildebeest would likely have gone extinct. The recovery shows just how important is the connection between wildlife areas and parks become more isolated and vulnerable to drought and other hazards. The connections to adjacent wildlife areas have been incorporated into the Amboseli Ecosystem Management Plan and Amboseli National Park Plan 2020-2030.
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For a fuller description of the drought see David Western. The Worst Drought. Turning Point or Tipping Point. Swara 2010: 3 16-20, for an account of the drought. 

By David Western

Prelude to the Community-Based Conservation (CBC) meeting
The future of the open rangelands in Kenya looks bleak in the face of land subdivision, privatization and changing national aspirations. Is there any role for community-based conservation in maintaining open rangelands, and if so, how should it be refashioned to meet the enormous challenges ahead?
 
I called a meeting of experienced CBC practitioners to confront the harsh realities of the breakdown in the social networks and institutions, which have sustained Kenya’s rangeland for generations. We must give hard thought to how to retain and strengthen the communities of landowners in shoring up the health of the land for its people and wildlife.
 
This is a formidable task and perhaps a lengthy one, but we need to start now when  there is still hope and scope. The topics we should address include the threats to the open rangelands, options for keeping the rangelands open and collectively managed, the future of CBC, and the way ahead.
 
The meeting at The House of Waine, Nairobi
 The meeting at the House of Waine in Nairobi on 3rd December 2020, was hosted by the African Conservation Centre under the Institutional Canopy of Conservation (ICAN), and brought together experienced CBC practitioners from across the southern rangelands of Kenya. The group included Lucy Waruingi and Johnson Sipitiek, ACC; Dickson Kaelo, Kenya Wildlife Conservancy Association; Jackson Mwato and Koikai Oloitiptip, Amboseli Ecosystem Trust; Michael Tiampati, Pastoral Development, and Donald Mombo, Taita-Taveta Wildlife Forum. Virginia Musengg’ya and Alvin Oduor of ACC served as rapporteurs. Daniel Sopia, Maasai Mara Wildlife Conservancy Association and Martin Mulama, World Wildlife Fund, were unable to attend but sent their apologies and support of the meeting.
 
The meeting set out to review the threats to the open rangelands vital to the pastoral livestock communities and wildlife alike, the opportunities and options for keeping the rangelands open and collectively governed, and the future of CBC as the driving force it has been over the last three decades.
 
The Dialogue
 The discussions explored several topics, among them the need for an analysis of current institutions and their roles, reinforcing existing Community-based Organizations (CBOs), strengthening supporting NGOs, and pushing for better services from county governments and national agencies. Another was the need for new forms of collective governance to reflect the shift in land tenure from communal to private ownership. Yet another was the need for livestock producer associations, which could diversify and improve rangeland production and market access. The role of conservation champions was also seen to be vital in speaking up for collaborative governance of the rangelands.
 
The meeting debated whether to focus on the future of CBC or the open rangelands and concluded that both are intimately linked. Land tenure and collaborative institutional arrangements are both necessary for governing large open landscapes, sustaining the productivity of the rangelands and the coexistence of livestock and wildlife.
 
Some of the main points covered in the discussion included:
 

• The need for donors and international NGOs to become resource brokers stimulating and funding the growth of national CBOs and NGOs to define and carry out conservation and development priorities.
• Addressing the undervaluing of rangeland resources and attracting a diverse portfolio of investments.
• Rethinking the future of the livestock production and ranching in the transition from subsistence pastoralism to commercial operations and product diversification, including renewal energy production, carbon credits, grass banks and the like.
• Building better connections between livestock production and wildlife conservation to create additive values.
• Diversifying tourism from the present wildlife focus to reflect range of amenities and products in the rangelands.
• Dovetailing government development programs with the needs and priorities of rangeland communities.
• Educational outreach and dialogue programs to prepare communities for the emerging challenges ahead. 
• Articulating the views of the community-based conservation and development of the rangelands from the bottom up with the support of collaborating organizations.
• Policies and governance practices developed locally, reinforced by county and government legislation, and planning.
• Highlighting local successes as the foundation of broader coalitions and collaborative arrangements.
• Promoting a demand-drive for conservation and development from within communities rather than depend on the supply-side programs driven by donors and conservation organizations. 

 
Conclusions
The concluding discussion revolved around whether to create new institutions to address the challenges ahead or to reinforce existing ones. It was agreed that rather than new institutions, a collaborative grassroots approach is called for to tackle land fragmentation and the political marginalization of pastoral communities. Recognizing the power of collective action, the meeting agreed that the four large landowner associations present--Taita-Taveta, Amboseli, SORALO and Mara conservancies—should form a Sothern Rangeland Coalition. The lands covered by the associations include the richest livestock and wildlife population in Kenya and are the primary tourism destination in Kenya. The southern rangelands can benefit from spotlighting its many values and opportunities, branding them for collective benefit and drawing up its own plans rather than have government and NGOs decide future directions and programs.
 
It was agreed that the minutes and deliberations of the meeting should be prepared and circulated and that the four-landowner groups and supporting institutions should convene on January 19th to decide on the next steps. The meeting will flesh out the terms of Sothern Rangeland Coalition, rotate the chair among member landowner associations and chart the way forward. ICAN will encourage a matching meeting to be held in Tanzania, leading to a joint workshop later in the year under the auspices of ICAN, the Borderland Conservation Initiative and SOKNOT. It was agreed that ACC should be the coordinating body for charting the way forward for CBC and the open rangelands.
 

By David Western and Victor Mose

On our January 7th 2020 web posting , we announced the ratification and adoption of the Amboseli Ecosystem Management Plan 2020-2030. The plan broke new ground in going beyond the wildlife plans of the AEMP 2008-2018 to include all aspects of natural resource and land use management of the ecosystem. ACP’s technical report to the planning committee formed the foundation of the ecosystem plan. ACP also gave a poster demonstration of its monitoring work and contribution to the AEMP plans at the KWS Information and Education Centre prior to the launch (Download posters  below).

The AEMP also broke new ground in setting the framework for the Amboseli National Park Plan 2020-2030. After several months delay caused by the Covid-19 lockdown, the final planning meeting for the ANPP 2030 was convened by the Kenya Wildlife Service in Amboseli on 20th September 2020. The review by the community members, NGOs, the tourist industry and conservation NGOs was quickly ratified, and the decision made to launch the ANPP and AEMP plans simultaneously.

The launch was held at the Kimana Gate of Amboseli National Park, attended by the Cabinet Secretary of the Ministry of Tourism and Wildlife, Najib Balala, the Principal Secretary, Fred Segor, the DG and senior staff from KWS, a large contingent from the Amboseli group ranches, UNDP and US AID representatives, conservation NGOs, and the Amboseli Ecosystem Trust.
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The Cabinet Secretary expects to have both the AEMP and ANPP gazetted immediately by the Attorney General’s Chambers and give the plans the legal enforcement needed to regulate developments compliant with the plans.

Download the posters here.

By David Western

Prince William’s presentation of the 2020 Tusk Award to Kenya’s John Kamanga gives global recognition to an African leader of community-based conservation (CBC). Above all, the award celebrates John’s outstanding stewardship of the South Rift Association of Landowners (Soralo) which has overseen a resurgence of wildlife in the Kenya-Tanzania borderlands. 

I joined John at the award ceremony in Nairobi, transmitted by video from the Kensington Place in London on December 3rd 2020. The tension among John’s family and colleagues erupted into a joyful outburst when Prince Willian declared John this year’s winner of the prestigious Tusk Award. John asked me to say a few words in his honor, as his “conservation mentor,” he said.  I lamented ironically how long it had taken the international community to recognize the remarkable legacy of the Maasai in conserving the richest wildlife lands on earth. Finally, here was John being honored on the world stage for his leadership in rekindling the capacity of his community to coexist with wildlife before those skills are lost forever.
Nairobi’s Covid-19 curfew put, paid to my longer reflections on John’s journey from Maasai pastoralist to national and global conservationist—and the far longer road community-based conservation has taken from its roots in southern Kenya to a global movement. Let me add here the words I would have given in John’s honor as a CBC leader, Covid-19 permitting.

The first tentative step in recognizing the role of communities in conserving Kenya’s wildlife heritage was taken in Amboseli in the late 1960s when I worked with the warden, Daniel Sindiyo to advocate a Maasai wildlife park. A presidential decree declaring Amboseli National Park scuttled the endeavor but provoked such a spate of wildlife killings that the government agreed to pay the surrounding Maasai community for migratory wildlife using its land, and to promote ecotourism enterprises to reap the economic benefits and fund social amenities such as schools and health clinics. That small victory, backed by a Tourism and Wildlife loan from the World Bank, prompted Kenya to introduce a new wildlife policy promoting community participation in wildlife conservation.
Similar community conservation efforts sprang up in Zimbabwe and Namibia, and with gathering speed, around the world as the limitations of parks were recognized and the prospects of conserving wildlife on the extensive community lands took root.

Recognizing a watershed moment, the Liz Claiborne Art Ortenberg Foundation (LCAOF) convened a meeting of community leaders, conservation organizations and donors at Airlie House in Virginia in 1994. The novel assembly collated case studies from around the world to give visibility and backing to the emerging CBC movement, dedicated to the coexistence of wildlife and community livelihoods. The success of the Airlie House event prompted similar gatherings at a Red Lodge meeting in Montana to promote collaborative resource management across the Interior West of the U.S, and communities across East Africa convened by the African Conservation Centre (ACC) to foster local conservation initiatives.

The Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) gave the CBC movement a big shot in the arm in setting up the Community Wildlife Service and granting seed money to promising community programs. In 1997, I launched the KWS’ Parks Beyond Parks program to recognize and encourage the emerging CBC movement, pushed for legal registration of community organizations, and set up the National Wildlife Forum to give them a strong voice. The European Union sponsored the Biodiversity Conservation Program and Tourism Trust Fund which gave start-up grants to dozens of local initiatives, including the first community sanctuary in Kimana, ecotourist lodges, tourism infrastructure and community scouts trained by KWS. The first community owned lodge, Ilng’wesi, backed by the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy and funded by KWS and LCAOF, laid the foundation of a host of community ecotourism ventures to follow.

Each new step and innovation triggered yet others, creating the self-propelling momentum behind the success of locally-inspired movements. By the early 2000s dozens of new community-based efforts had sprung up, among them the Northern Rangelands Trust in northern Kenya, and the Taita-Taveta, Mara, Amboseli and SORALO initiatives in southern Kenya, each spawning dozens of new conservancies.

Ecotourism Kenya, launched by ACC to promote green tourism, refreshed Kenya’s fading reputation as Africa’s premier safari destination by promoting conservancies and injecting tourism revenues into the CBC movement. The ecotourism boost and the formation of the Kenya Wildlife Conservancy Association has given the CBC movement a strong foundation. In the last decade, over 150 conservancies have spread across Kenya covering more land than all Kenya’s national parks and reserves and employing more wildlife rangers than KWS.

Which brings me back to SORALO, among the most successful of all Parks beyond Parks in Kenya. ACC started the ball rolling in the South Rift by helping Shompole Group Ranch set up an ecotourism lodge and conservation programs. John Kamanga, chairman of Olkiramatian Group Ranch, invited John Waithaka, director of ACC and me to meet his committee and support the plans they had drawn up to emulate Shomopole’s success--and to go further in engaging the community. John’s plans married well with ACC‘s vision of creating a conservation link between Amboseli and Maasai Mara to conserve the richest assemblage of vertebrates in all Africa and find space for the growing elephant herds spreading out from the two parks.

The success of Shompole and Olkiramatian soon drew in other group ranches, and so SORALO was born. Before long, the growing network of group ranch conservation plans fulfilled the vison of linking Mara and Amboseli across the Rift Valley. Key to the growth of SORALO has been John’s leadership and ACC’s support of Maasai traditional practices for managing pastures, the health of the land and fostering coexistence with wildlife. Among the many innovations is the construction of the Lale’enok Centre which deploys local resource assessors to monitor the rangelands and community rangers to protect wildlife and regulate the use of pastures; the promotion of cultural tourism; encouraging women’s enterprises; attracting visiting scientists and university field visits; setting up an education outreach program and launching a Rebuilding the Pride predator program to restore carnivore populations. The unique feature of the Lale’enok Centre is its practice of using Maasai traditional methods of producing, sharing, and using knowledge for the common good of the community.

The CBC initiatives in SORALO, Amboseli and across southern Kenya in collaboration with ACC and other conservation organizations have created “horizontal learning exchanges,” the swapping of ideas and skills among communities within Kenya and reciprocal visits across Africa, with American ranchers and among pastoral communities around the world, The Rangelands Association of Kenya, cattlemen’s associations and the Maasai Heritage Program are some of the new bodies to have sprung up from the learning exchanges, many of them with John at the helm.

There is no leader without a successful movement and no movement without effective leaders. The CBC movement in Kenya has spawned and been driven by several world class conservation leaders, John among them. Growing up as a livestock herder with wildlife as his neighbors, John is the epitome of and an ambassador for the coexistence of people and wildlife. SORALO over the last two decades has seen its lion population grow four-fold, elephants return to the South Rift after decades of being driven out by poachers, other wildlife thrive and the community take pride in its conservation achievements.

The Tusk Award gives long overdue recognition to John’s conservation achievements through SORALO and on the national and international stage. For the most part the success of CBC in Kenya has succeeded because of the traditional land practices of its pastoral peoples and their ability to live with wildlife. With those traditions eroding, the land shrinking and being carved up by private allotments, CBC now calls for new forms of collective action and land management--if the pastoral herds no less than wildlife are to find a place in the East African future savannas. This new landscape calls for visionary leaders like John Kamanga, strong community organizations and the support of national and international conservation organizations dedicating to supporting them.