Coexistence in the South Rift: Ecologically sensible community conservation

Kenya has seen a dramatic drop in large ungulate populations in the last 50 years, both within and outside protected areas. Of our remaining wildlife, 60% is located outside of these protected areas. Conservation in community... [ view full abstract ]

Kenya has seen a dramatic drop in large ungulate populations in the last 50 years, both within and outside protected areas. Of our remaining wildlife, 60% is located outside of these protected areas. Conservation in community lands is thus critical in protecting species at the landscape scale. As a result, Kenya is now home to a large number of community-based conservation efforts. However, many of these efforts often suffer from stumbling blocks including an over-reliance on the fragile tourism market, increasing demand on shared community resources, which in some cases is further confounded by mismanagement. Much is understood about such challenges, but few community-based conservation efforts have been systematically monitored and assessed to understand their ecological suitability and sustainability.
We focus on community-based efforts in the South Rift Valley of Kenya across two group ranches; Olkiramatian and Shompole. These group ranches established conservation areas in order to both preserve wildlife populations and livestock pasture management, with conservation areas also acting as a grass bank for dry season grazing.
In 2007, we began a long-term ecological monitoring program for the area in an effort to understand the ecology of the region and to provide reliable information to group ranch management.
The monitoring relies on vegetation sampling to assess general pasture conditions from randomised plots spread across the ecosystem, straight-line transects to assesses wildlife and livestock densities and distributions and more recently mapping of critical natural resources and settlement patterns.
Results so far indicate the following:
-The region is home to diverse and stable populations of both livestock, ungulates and carnivores, underpinned by a rich diversity of habitats.
-The conservation areas act both as wildlife refuges and dry season livestock grazing areas which is supported ecologically by the movement of wildlife and livestock from low biomass to high biomass areas as the seasons change from wet to dry.
Our conclusions so far include that traditional pastoralism and wildlife conservation are highly compatible land uses in the South Rift but moreover that the land use management in the region is ecologically sound and appears thus far to be successful.