Following the transfer of Amboseli National Park management to Kajiado County, I feel once again the need to post my own views, given my long involvement in Amboseli and requests for comments. This follows the views I posted shortly after the return of Amboseli to Maasai custodianship, announced by President William Ruto in August 2023. The transfer was highly controversial at the time and I laid out my reason for supporting the transfer, subject to legal and other conditions needed to avoid risking the future of Amboseli and political disruption. I believe those conditions have been met. Further, the strategic plan laid out for Amboseli which I was involved in expands the scope of conservation to encompass the entire ecosystem and fully engages the Maasai community.
The handing back of Amboseli National Park to Kajiado County management on 8th November capped four days of the colorful Maasai Festival. The applause from the 25,000 participants from across the Maasai Nation was rapturous when President William Ruto gave the deed of transfer to Kajiado County governor Joseph Lenku. “The people who protected Amboseli’s wildlife for centuries will now become its custodians once again after fifty-one years of intense lobbying for its return”, he noted.
As a member of the Kajiado Technical Committee appointed by the governor to steer the transition process, I fully support the transfer of Amboseli back to the custodianship of the Maasai. Here’s why.
Historically, Maasai conserved the richest wildlife areas in East Africa, including Serengeti, Maasai Mara, Amboseli, Tsavo West and Samburu. Yet after centuries of coexistence, the Maasai were forcibly evicted from their homelands to preserve the very wildlife they had long protected. The evictions deprived the pastoralists of vital pastures, marginalized the indigenous community and deepened conflict with wildlife on their fragmented diminished lands. Further, the Maasai were awarded neither compensation for their loss of land, nor a stake in the burgeoning park revenues.
My own work in Amboseli over the decades shows the Maasai coexist with wildlife in great abundance where livestock and wild animals have sufficient space to migrate seasonally. Parks alone are far too small to sustain wildlife migrations if denied access to the surrounding pastoral lands.
All across Africa, wildlife numbers are slumping inside as well as outside parks. Parks open to surrounding community wildlife conservancies do far better than those cut off and fenced in. Wildlife and pastoralists alike benefit from such land sharing.
The annexation of Amboseli as a national park in 1974 caused a furor and a spate of elephant, rhino, lion and hyena killings. The backlash was only quelled by concessions government made to secure the park. The concessions included giving the Maasai access to late season pastures, piped water supplies to outlying communities, payments to conserve the wildlife migrations on their lands, and locating lodges outside the park to foster tourism enterprises and alleviate visitor crowding.
The innovations pioneered in Amboseli ushered in a new approach to national parks, one rooted in securing the ecosystem they depend on and community-based conservation, both now signatures of Kenya’s conservation policy.
The new conservation accord saw Maasai community leaders convene a meeting of government and conservation partners to develop a ten-year Amboseli Ecosystem Management Plan 2008-2018. The plan is overseen by the Amboseli Ecosystem Trust in partnership with the Kenya Wildlife Service and conservation partners. The plan was revised and expanded in 2020. The current national park plan is fully embedded in the ecosystem management plan, aimed at securing the migrations to ensure the viability of the ecosystem and sustain pastoral herding practices.
Amboseli today has many more elephants, wildebeest and zebras than when I first counted wildlife in 1967. The deployment of hundreds community rangers, the growth of tourism enterprises on community lands, and over twenty conservancies managed by the Amboseli Ecosystem Trust with the support of conservation NGOs has seen Amboseli buck the tide of wildlife losses across Kenya. The ninety percent of the wildlife migratory range beyond Amboseli National Park is kept open by Maasai landowners committing their lands to conservation. The wildlife success story of Amboseli stems from adopting the Maasai traditions of coexistence rather than the segregation and exclusion policies of the early national park years.
The handing back of Amboseli to the Maasai comes at a critical juncture though. Frustrations are mounting over rising conflict with wildlife and the paltry benefits the Maasai get from the park. The current subdivision of group ranch lands poses the biggest of all threats to the future of the national park, wildlife and livestock migrations, and the integrity of the Amboseli ecosystem. Roads and infrastructure are in a poor state, and unregulated flooding has closed tourist circuits. Investment in tourism, education, community outreach and research and ecological management are languishing. With the KWS budget overstrained by having to manage parks and wildlife country-wide, only a small portion of the revenues earned by Amboseli is currently reinvested in its management.
Having played a large role in Amboseli’s community and ecosystem approach to conserving wildlife, I see no future in our parks without them working well for the peoples who bear the burden of supporting them. The Amboseli transfer to Maasai custodianship offers the best hope for conserving wildlife across the entire ecosystem.
President Willian Ruto hands over the management functions of Amboseli National ParkAs a former director of Kenya Wildlife Service, I expressed reservations about returning Amboseli to the Kajiado County by presidential directive (see web posting 6th September 2023). The gazetting and degazetting of any national park must be done through the provisions of the law. Amboseli could otherwise be taken back by a future presidential decree. The return to the Maasai should also be seen as the correction of an historical injustice of the presidential seizure of Amboseli from the Maasai, not an election bribe. Other counties will otherwise press for a similar gift of national parks. I also urged Kajiado County to draw up a clear strategy and plan for managing the park to avoid political interference and the mismanagement which dogged Amboseli when formally managed as Amboseli National Reserve by the Kajiado County.
These caveats have been met. The transfer took two years of review and discussion led by a government appointed advisory team, and a Kajiado County Technical Committee which I sat on. The government advisory team held dozens of public hearings across the country, and the county team held consultative meetings in Amboseli and with the government team.
The county Technical Committee produced its report on the Transition of Amboseli National Park to the Kajiado County Government. A Strategy and Vision for a Third Generation Park, 2024-2026. The strategy adopted the existing Amboseli National Park Management Plan embedded within the Amboseli Ecosystem Management Plan. The strategy aims at strengthening Amboseli’s community-based approach and sustaining wildlife migrations and populations by adding extra community lands to the existing conservancies. The strategy is intended to maintain ecological processes and biological diversity through integrating livestock and wildlife management at an ecosystem scale. It also conforms with the protocols recognizing Amboseli as a Man and Biosphere reserve.
A key provision of the new vision for the park is the establishment of a semi-autonomous Amboseli Ecosystem Management Authority to oversee the management of the park and ecosystem. The Authority will include representatives from national and county governments, the Maasai community, conservation organizations and the tourism industry. The Authority is intended to ensure professional management of Amboseli and freedom from political interference.
The government advisory team found wide support for the semi-autonomous body across the country. The transfer of Amboseli management to the Kajiado County was endorsed at a public verification meeting at the Bomas of Kenya and subsequently approved by Cabinet and parliament in fulfillment with the legal provisions. Transfer of management functions to the Kajiado County does not transfer the ownership of Amboseli as a national park. Amboseli remains a national park.
The transfer takes place over three years, allowing time for the county and new Amboseli Ecosystem Management Authority to build up the capacity to manage Amboseli to the highest standards. The full retention of revenues by the Kajiado County at the end of the transition period will ensure far more funds are injected into the restoration and management of Amboseli. A substantial portion of the revenues will support Maasai community to sustain wildlife population and improve the livelihoods of Maasai landowners.
Governor Lenku on receiving the transfer of deeds from the president made the following pledge:
“The County Government of Kajiado shall coordinate and recognize communities living around the park to set aside more land for conservation that will include wildlife corridors, wildlife dispersal areas, and conservancies for park viability, and to ensure that at least one million land acres is set aside for conservation. We have game reserves in Kenya, where communities and wildlife coexist together, but we now want to go a notch higher to create a third-generation park. The conservation lands committed by the community, five times the area of the park, shows the community’s commitment to wildlife conservation and tourism.”
President Ruto after viewing posters of the strategic plan for Amboseli noted that the transfer of functions to the Kajiado County was not a withdrawal of national commitment but a renewal of trust in the people. “The people who have protected Amboseli for centuries will now be at the center of its future.”
The vision for a new generation park is a bold step putting people back at the center of Amboseli’s conservation after decades of exclusion and resentment. There are risks, of course, the biggest being land subdivision and fragmentation. Subdivision leading to land fragmentation could jeopardize the future of pastoralism as well as wildlife. Then there is the risk of political interference and mismanagement.
To minimize the risks, the gazette notice transferring the management functions of Amboseli to Kajiado County takes a cautious approach. KWS will remain responsible overall for wildlife security, mitigating conflict, protecting threatened and endangered species and other functions. The transfer covers a 15-year time horizon subject to review.
I see the risks of handing back the custodianship of Amboseli to the Maasai as manageable, and far less than having to fence the park because wildlife has no place in the lives of the surrounding community. If the vision for Amboseli works, it will open the way for parks to win space for wildlife for the mutual benefit of communities across Kenya.
David Western and John Kamanga (left photo) explain to President Ruto the historical coexistenceFollowing the transfer of Amboseli National Park management to Kajiado County, I feel once again the need to post my own views, given my long involvement in Amboseli and requests for comments. This follows the views I posted shortly after the return of Amboseli to Maasai custodianship, announced by President William Ruto in August 2023. The transfer was highly controversial at the time and I laid out my reason for supporting the transfer, subject to legal and other conditions needed to avoid risking the future of Amboseli and political disruption. I believe those conditions have been met. Further, the strategic plan laid out for Amboseli which I was involved in expands the scope of conservation to encompass the entire ecosystem and fully engages the Maasai community.
The handing back of Amboseli National Park to Kajiado County management on 8th November capped four days of the colorful Maasai Festival. The applause from the 25,000 participants from across the Maasai Nation was rapturous when President William Ruto gave the deed of transfer to Kajiado County governor Joseph Lenku. “The people who protected Amboseli’s wildlife for centuries will now become its custodians once again after fifty-one years of intense lobbying for its return”, he noted.
As a member of the Kajiado Technical Committee appointed by the governor to steer the transition process, I fully support the transfer of Amboseli back to the custodianship of the Maasai. Here’s why.
Historically, Maasai conserved the richest wildlife areas in East Africa, including Serengeti, Maasai Mara, Amboseli, Tsavo West and Samburu. Yet after centuries of coexistence, the Maasai were forcibly evicted from their homelands to preserve the very wildlife they had long protected. The evictions deprived the pastoralists of vital pastures, marginalized the indigenous community and deepened conflict with wildlife on their fragmented diminished lands. Further, the Maasai were awarded neither compensation for their loss of land, nor a stake in the burgeoning park revenues.
My own work in Amboseli over the decades shows the Maasai coexist with wildlife in great abundance where livestock and wild animals have sufficient space to migrate seasonally. Parks alone are far too small to sustain wildlife migrations if denied access to the surrounding pastoral lands.
All across Africa, wildlife numbers are slumping inside as well as outside parks. Parks open to surrounding community wildlife conservancies do far better than those cut off and fenced in. Wildlife and pastoralists alike benefit from such land sharing.
The annexation of Amboseli as a national park in 1974 caused a furor and a spate of elephant, rhino, lion and hyena killings. The backlash was only quelled by concessions government made to secure the park. The concessions included giving the Maasai access to late season pastures, piped water supplies to outlying communities, payments to conserve the wildlife migrations on their lands, and locating lodges outside the park to foster tourism enterprises and alleviate visitor crowding.
The innovations pioneered in Amboseli ushered in a new approach to national parks, one rooted in securing the ecosystem they depend on and community-based conservation, both now signatures of Kenya’s conservation policy.
The new conservation accord saw Maasai community leaders convene a meeting of government and conservation partners to develop a ten-year Amboseli Ecosystem Management Plan 2008-2018. The plan is overseen by the Amboseli Ecosystem Trust in partnership with the Kenya Wildlife Service and conservation partners. The plan was revised and expanded in 2020. The current national park plan is fully embedded in the ecosystem management plan, aimed at securing the migrations to ensure the viability of the ecosystem and sustain pastoral herding practices.
Amboseli today has many more elephants, wildebeest and zebras than when I first counted wildlife in 1967. The deployment of hundreds community rangers, the growth of tourism enterprises on community lands, and over twenty conservancies managed by the Amboseli Ecosystem Trust with the support of conservation NGOs has seen Amboseli buck the tide of wildlife losses across Kenya. The ninety percent of the wildlife migratory range beyond Amboseli National Park is kept open by Maasai landowners committing their lands to conservation. The wildlife success story of Amboseli stems from adopting the Maasai traditions of coexistence rather than the segregation and exclusion policies of the early national park years.
The handing back of Amboseli to the Maasai comes at a critical juncture though. Frustrations are mounting over rising conflict with wildlife and the paltry benefits the Maasai get from the park. The current subdivision of group ranch lands poses the biggest of all threats to the future of the national park, wildlife and livestock migrations, and the integrity of the Amboseli ecosystem. Roads and infrastructure are in a poor state, and unregulated flooding has closed tourist circuits. Investment in tourism, education, community outreach and research and ecological management are languishing. With the KWS budget overstrained by having to manage parks and wildlife country-wide, only a small portion of the revenues earned by Amboseli is currently reinvested in its management.
Having played a large role in Amboseli’s community and ecosystem approach to conserving wildlife, I see no future in our parks without them working well for the peoples who bear the burden of supporting them. The Amboseli transfer to Maasai custodianship offers the best hope for conserving wildlife across the entire ecosystem.
President Willian Ruto hands over the management functions of Amboseli National ParkAs a former director of Kenya Wildlife Service, I expressed reservations about returning Amboseli to the Kajiado County by presidential directive (see web posting 6th September 2023). The gazetting and degazetting of any national park must be done through the provisions of the law. Amboseli could otherwise be taken back by a future presidential decree. The return to the Maasai should also be seen as the correction of an historical injustice of the presidential seizure of Amboseli from the Maasai, not an election bribe. Other counties will otherwise press for a similar gift of national parks. I also urged Kajiado County to draw up a clear strategy and plan for managing the park to avoid political interference and the mismanagement which dogged Amboseli when formally managed as Amboseli National Reserve by the Kajiado County.
These caveats have been met. The transfer took two years of review and discussion led by a government appointed advisory team, and a Kajiado County Technical Committee which I sat on. The government advisory team held dozens of public hearings across the country, and the county team held consultative meetings in Amboseli and with the government team.
The county Technical Committee produced its report on the Transition of Amboseli National Park to the Kajiado County Government. A Strategy and Vision for a Third Generation Park, 2024-2026. The strategy adopted the existing Amboseli National Park Management Plan embedded within the Amboseli Ecosystem Management Plan. The strategy aims at strengthening Amboseli’s community-based approach and sustaining wildlife migrations and populations by adding extra community lands to the existing conservancies. The strategy is intended to maintain ecological processes and biological diversity through integrating livestock and wildlife management at an ecosystem scale. It also conforms with the protocols recognizing Amboseli as a Man and Biosphere reserve.
A key provision of the new vision for the park is the establishment of a semi-autonomous Amboseli Ecosystem Management Authority to oversee the management of the park and ecosystem. The Authority will include representatives from national and county governments, the Maasai community, conservation organizations and the tourism industry. The Authority is intended to ensure professional management of Amboseli and freedom from political interference.
The government advisory team found wide support for the semi-autonomous body across the country. The transfer of Amboseli management to the Kajiado County was endorsed at a public verification meeting at the Bomas of Kenya and subsequently approved by Cabinet and parliament in fulfillment with the legal provisions. Transfer of management functions to the Kajiado County does not transfer the ownership of Amboseli as a national park. Amboseli remains a national park.
The transfer takes place over three years, allowing time for the county and new Amboseli Ecosystem Management Authority to build up the capacity to manage Amboseli to the highest standards. The full retention of revenues by the Kajiado County at the end of the transition period will ensure far more funds are injected into the restoration and management of Amboseli. A substantial portion of the revenues will support Maasai community to sustain wildlife population and improve the livelihoods of Maasai landowners.
Governor Lenku on receiving the transfer of deeds from the president made the following pledge:
“The County Government of Kajiado shall coordinate and recognize communities living around the park to set aside more land for conservation that will include wildlife corridors, wildlife dispersal areas, and conservancies for park viability, and to ensure that at least one million land acres is set aside for conservation. We have game reserves in Kenya, where communities and wildlife coexist together, but we now want to go a notch higher to create a third-generation park. The conservation lands committed by the community, five times the area of the park, shows the community’s commitment to wildlife conservation and tourism.”
President Ruto after viewing posters of the strategic plan for Amboseli noted that the transfer of functions to the Kajiado County was not a withdrawal of national commitment but a renewal of trust in the people. “The people who have protected Amboseli for centuries will now be at the center of its future.”
The vision for a new generation park is a bold step putting people back at the center of Amboseli’s conservation after decades of exclusion and resentment. There are risks, of course, the biggest being land subdivision and fragmentation. Subdivision leading to land fragmentation could jeopardize the future of pastoralism as well as wildlife. Then there is the risk of political interference and mismanagement.
To minimize the risks, the gazette notice transferring the management functions of Amboseli to Kajiado County takes a cautious approach. KWS will remain responsible overall for wildlife security, mitigating conflict, protecting threatened and endangered species and other functions. The transfer covers a 15-year time horizon subject to review.
I see the risks of handing back the custodianship of Amboseli to the Maasai as manageable, and far less than having to fence the park because wildlife has no place in the lives of the surrounding community. If the vision for Amboseli works, it will open the way for parks to win space for wildlife for the mutual benefit of communities across Kenya.
David Western and John Kamanga (left photo) explain to President Ruto the historical coexistenceFollowing the transfer of Amboseli National Park management to Kajiado County, I feel once again the need to post my own views, given my long involvement in Amboseli and requests for comments. This follows the views I posted shortly after the return of Amboseli to Maasai custodianship, announced by President William Ruto in August 2023. The transfer was highly controversial at the time and I laid out my reason for supporting the transfer, subject to legal and other conditions needed to avoid risking the future of Amboseli and political disruption. I believe those conditions have been met. Further, the strategic plan laid out for Amboseli which I was involved in expands the scope of conservation to encompass the entire ecosystem and fully engages the Maasai community.
The handing back of Amboseli National Park to Kajiado County management on 8th November capped four days of the colorful Maasai Festival. The applause from the 25,000 participants from across the Maasai Nation was rapturous when President William Ruto gave the deed of transfer to Kajiado County governor Joseph Lenku. “The people who protected Amboseli’s wildlife for centuries will now become its custodians once again after fifty-one years of intense lobbying for its return”, he noted.
As a member of the Kajiado Technical Committee appointed by the governor to steer the transition process, I fully support the transfer of Amboseli back to the custodianship of the Maasai. Here’s why.
Historically, Maasai conserved the richest wildlife areas in East Africa, including Serengeti, Maasai Mara, Amboseli, Tsavo West and Samburu. Yet after centuries of coexistence, the Maasai were forcibly evicted from their homelands to preserve the very wildlife they had long protected. The evictions deprived the pastoralists of vital pastures, marginalized the indigenous community and deepened conflict with wildlife on their fragmented diminished lands. Further, the Maasai were awarded neither compensation for their loss of land, nor a stake in the burgeoning park revenues.
My own work in Amboseli over the decades shows the Maasai coexist with wildlife in great abundance where livestock and wild animals have sufficient space to migrate seasonally. Parks alone are far too small to sustain wildlife migrations if denied access to the surrounding pastoral lands.
All across Africa, wildlife numbers are slumping inside as well as outside parks. Parks open to surrounding community wildlife conservancies do far better than those cut off and fenced in. Wildlife and pastoralists alike benefit from such land sharing.
The annexation of Amboseli as a national park in 1974 caused a furor and a spate of elephant, rhino, lion and hyena killings. The backlash was only quelled by concessions government made to secure the park. The concessions included giving the Maasai access to late season pastures, piped water supplies to outlying communities, payments to conserve the wildlife migrations on their lands, and locating lodges outside the park to foster tourism enterprises and alleviate visitor crowding.
The innovations pioneered in Amboseli ushered in a new approach to national parks, one rooted in securing the ecosystem they depend on and community-based conservation, both now signatures of Kenya’s conservation policy.
The new conservation accord saw Maasai community leaders convene a meeting of government and conservation partners to develop a ten-year Amboseli Ecosystem Management Plan 2008-2018. The plan is overseen by the Amboseli Ecosystem Trust in partnership with the Kenya Wildlife Service and conservation partners. The plan was revised and expanded in 2020. The current national park plan is fully embedded in the ecosystem management plan, aimed at securing the migrations to ensure the viability of the ecosystem and sustain pastoral herding practices.
Amboseli today has many more elephants, wildebeest and zebras than when I first counted wildlife in 1967. The deployment of hundreds community rangers, the growth of tourism enterprises on community lands, and over twenty conservancies managed by the Amboseli Ecosystem Trust with the support of conservation NGOs has seen Amboseli buck the tide of wildlife losses across Kenya. The ninety percent of the wildlife migratory range beyond Amboseli National Park is kept open by Maasai landowners committing their lands to conservation. The wildlife success story of Amboseli stems from adopting the Maasai traditions of coexistence rather than the segregation and exclusion policies of the early national park years.
The handing back of Amboseli to the Maasai comes at a critical juncture though. Frustrations are mounting over rising conflict with wildlife and the paltry benefits the Maasai get from the park. The current subdivision of group ranch lands poses the biggest of all threats to the future of the national park, wildlife and livestock migrations, and the integrity of the Amboseli ecosystem. Roads and infrastructure are in a poor state, and unregulated flooding has closed tourist circuits. Investment in tourism, education, community outreach and research and ecological management are languishing. With the KWS budget overstrained by having to manage parks and wildlife country-wide, only a small portion of the revenues earned by Amboseli is currently reinvested in its management.
Having played a large role in Amboseli’s community and ecosystem approach to conserving wildlife, I see no future in our parks without them working well for the peoples who bear the burden of supporting them. The Amboseli transfer to Maasai custodianship offers the best hope for conserving wildlife across the entire ecosystem.
President Willian Ruto hands over the management functions of Amboseli National ParkAs a former director of Kenya Wildlife Service, I expressed reservations about returning Amboseli to the Kajiado County by presidential directive (see web posting 6th September 2023). The gazetting and degazetting of any national park must be done through the provisions of the law. Amboseli could otherwise be taken back by a future presidential decree. The return to the Maasai should also be seen as the correction of an historical injustice of the presidential seizure of Amboseli from the Maasai, not an election bribe. Other counties will otherwise press for a similar gift of national parks. I also urged Kajiado County to draw up a clear strategy and plan for managing the park to avoid political interference and the mismanagement which dogged Amboseli when formally managed as Amboseli National Reserve by the Kajiado County.
These caveats have been met. The transfer took two years of review and discussion led by a government appointed advisory team, and a Kajiado County Technical Committee which I sat on. The government advisory team held dozens of public hearings across the country, and the county team held consultative meetings in Amboseli and with the government team.
The county Technical Committee produced its report on the Transition of Amboseli National Park to the Kajiado County Government. A Strategy and Vision for a Third Generation Park, 2024-2026. The strategy adopted the existing Amboseli National Park Management Plan embedded within the Amboseli Ecosystem Management Plan. The strategy aims at strengthening Amboseli’s community-based approach and sustaining wildlife migrations and populations by adding extra community lands to the existing conservancies. The strategy is intended to maintain ecological processes and biological diversity through integrating livestock and wildlife management at an ecosystem scale. It also conforms with the protocols recognizing Amboseli as a Man and Biosphere reserve.
A key provision of the new vision for the park is the establishment of a semi-autonomous Amboseli Ecosystem Management Authority to oversee the management of the park and ecosystem. The Authority will include representatives from national and county governments, the Maasai community, conservation organizations and the tourism industry. The Authority is intended to ensure professional management of Amboseli and freedom from political interference.
The government advisory team found wide support for the semi-autonomous body across the country. The transfer of Amboseli management to the Kajiado County was endorsed at a public verification meeting at the Bomas of Kenya and subsequently approved by Cabinet and parliament in fulfillment with the legal provisions. Transfer of management functions to the Kajiado County does not transfer the ownership of Amboseli as a national park. Amboseli remains a national park.
The transfer takes place over three years, allowing time for the county and new Amboseli Ecosystem Management Authority to build up the capacity to manage Amboseli to the highest standards. The full retention of revenues by the Kajiado County at the end of the transition period will ensure far more funds are injected into the restoration and management of Amboseli. A substantial portion of the revenues will support Maasai community to sustain wildlife population and improve the livelihoods of Maasai landowners.
Governor Lenku on receiving the transfer of deeds from the president made the following pledge:
“The County Government of Kajiado shall coordinate and recognize communities living around the park to set aside more land for conservation that will include wildlife corridors, wildlife dispersal areas, and conservancies for park viability, and to ensure that at least one million land acres is set aside for conservation. We have game reserves in Kenya, where communities and wildlife coexist together, but we now want to go a notch higher to create a third-generation park. The conservation lands committed by the community, five times the area of the park, shows the community’s commitment to wildlife conservation and tourism.”
President Ruto after viewing posters of the strategic plan for Amboseli noted that the transfer of functions to the Kajiado County was not a withdrawal of national commitment but a renewal of trust in the people. “The people who have protected Amboseli for centuries will now be at the center of its future.”
The vision for a new generation park is a bold step putting people back at the center of Amboseli’s conservation after decades of exclusion and resentment. There are risks, of course, the biggest being land subdivision and fragmentation. Subdivision leading to land fragmentation could jeopardize the future of pastoralism as well as wildlife. Then there is the risk of political interference and mismanagement.
To minimize the risks, the gazette notice transferring the management functions of Amboseli to Kajiado County takes a cautious approach. KWS will remain responsible overall for wildlife security, mitigating conflict, protecting threatened and endangered species and other functions. The transfer covers a 15-year time horizon subject to review.
I see the risks of handing back the custodianship of Amboseli to the Maasai as manageable, and far less than having to fence the park because wildlife has no place in the lives of the surrounding community. If the vision for Amboseli works, it will open the way for parks to win space for wildlife for the mutual benefit of communities across Kenya.
David Western and John Kamanga (left photo) explain to President Ruto the historical coexistenceFollowing the transfer of Amboseli National Park management to Kajiado County, I feel once again the need to post my own views, given my long involvement in Amboseli and requests for comments. This follows the views I posted shortly after the return of Amboseli to Maasai custodianship, announced by President William Ruto in August 2023. The transfer was highly controversial at the time and I laid out my reason for supporting the transfer, subject to legal and other conditions needed to avoid risking the future of Amboseli and political disruption. I believe those conditions have been met. Further, the strategic plan laid out for Amboseli which I was involved in expands the scope of conservation to encompass the entire ecosystem and fully engages the Maasai community.
The handing back of Amboseli National Park to Kajiado County management on 8th November capped four days of the colorful Maasai Festival. The applause from the 25,000 participants from across the Maasai Nation was rapturous when President William Ruto gave the deed of transfer to Kajiado County governor Joseph Lenku. “The people who protected Amboseli’s wildlife for centuries will now become its custodians once again after fifty-one years of intense lobbying for its return”, he noted.
As a member of the Kajiado Technical Committee appointed by the governor to steer the transition process, I fully support the transfer of Amboseli back to the custodianship of the Maasai. Here’s why.
Historically, Maasai conserved the richest wildlife areas in East Africa, including Serengeti, Maasai Mara, Amboseli, Tsavo West and Samburu. Yet after centuries of coexistence, the Maasai were forcibly evicted from their homelands to preserve the very wildlife they had long protected. The evictions deprived the pastoralists of vital pastures, marginalized the indigenous community and deepened conflict with wildlife on their fragmented diminished lands. Further, the Maasai were awarded neither compensation for their loss of land, nor a stake in the burgeoning park revenues.
My own work in Amboseli over the decades shows the Maasai coexist with wildlife in great abundance where livestock and wild animals have sufficient space to migrate seasonally. Parks alone are far too small to sustain wildlife migrations if denied access to the surrounding pastoral lands.
All across Africa, wildlife numbers are slumping inside as well as outside parks. Parks open to surrounding community wildlife conservancies do far better than those cut off and fenced in. Wildlife and pastoralists alike benefit from such land sharing.
The annexation of Amboseli as a national park in 1974 caused a furor and a spate of elephant, rhino, lion and hyena killings. The backlash was only quelled by concessions government made to secure the park. The concessions included giving the Maasai access to late season pastures, piped water supplies to outlying communities, payments to conserve the wildlife migrations on their lands, and locating lodges outside the park to foster tourism enterprises and alleviate visitor crowding.
The innovations pioneered in Amboseli ushered in a new approach to national parks, one rooted in securing the ecosystem they depend on and community-based conservation, both now signatures of Kenya’s conservation policy.
The new conservation accord saw Maasai community leaders convene a meeting of government and conservation partners to develop a ten-year Amboseli Ecosystem Management Plan 2008-2018. The plan is overseen by the Amboseli Ecosystem Trust in partnership with the Kenya Wildlife Service and conservation partners. The plan was revised and expanded in 2020. The current national park plan is fully embedded in the ecosystem management plan, aimed at securing the migrations to ensure the viability of the ecosystem and sustain pastoral herding practices.
Amboseli today has many more elephants, wildebeest and zebras than when I first counted wildlife in 1967. The deployment of hundreds community rangers, the growth of tourism enterprises on community lands, and over twenty conservancies managed by the Amboseli Ecosystem Trust with the support of conservation NGOs has seen Amboseli buck the tide of wildlife losses across Kenya. The ninety percent of the wildlife migratory range beyond Amboseli National Park is kept open by Maasai landowners committing their lands to conservation. The wildlife success story of Amboseli stems from adopting the Maasai traditions of coexistence rather than the segregation and exclusion policies of the early national park years.
The handing back of Amboseli to the Maasai comes at a critical juncture though. Frustrations are mounting over rising conflict with wildlife and the paltry benefits the Maasai get from the park. The current subdivision of group ranch lands poses the biggest of all threats to the future of the national park, wildlife and livestock migrations, and the integrity of the Amboseli ecosystem. Roads and infrastructure are in a poor state, and unregulated flooding has closed tourist circuits. Investment in tourism, education, community outreach and research and ecological management are languishing. With the KWS budget overstrained by having to manage parks and wildlife country-wide, only a small portion of the revenues earned by Amboseli is currently reinvested in its management.
Having played a large role in Amboseli’s community and ecosystem approach to conserving wildlife, I see no future in our parks without them working well for the peoples who bear the burden of supporting them. The Amboseli transfer to Maasai custodianship offers the best hope for conserving wildlife across the entire ecosystem.
President Willian Ruto hands over the management functions of Amboseli National ParkAs a former director of Kenya Wildlife Service, I expressed reservations about returning Amboseli to the Kajiado County by presidential directive (see web posting 6th September 2023). The gazetting and degazetting of any national park must be done through the provisions of the law. Amboseli could otherwise be taken back by a future presidential decree. The return to the Maasai should also be seen as the correction of an historical injustice of the presidential seizure of Amboseli from the Maasai, not an election bribe. Other counties will otherwise press for a similar gift of national parks. I also urged Kajiado County to draw up a clear strategy and plan for managing the park to avoid political interference and the mismanagement which dogged Amboseli when formally managed as Amboseli National Reserve by the Kajiado County.
These caveats have been met. The transfer took two years of review and discussion led by a government appointed advisory team, and a Kajiado County Technical Committee which I sat on. The government advisory team held dozens of public hearings across the country, and the county team held consultative meetings in Amboseli and with the government team.
The county Technical Committee produced its report on the Transition of Amboseli National Park to the Kajiado County Government. A Strategy and Vision for a Third Generation Park, 2024-2026. The strategy adopted the existing Amboseli National Park Management Plan embedded within the Amboseli Ecosystem Management Plan. The strategy aims at strengthening Amboseli’s community-based approach and sustaining wildlife migrations and populations by adding extra community lands to the existing conservancies. The strategy is intended to maintain ecological processes and biological diversity through integrating livestock and wildlife management at an ecosystem scale. It also conforms with the protocols recognizing Amboseli as a Man and Biosphere reserve.
A key provision of the new vision for the park is the establishment of a semi-autonomous Amboseli Ecosystem Management Authority to oversee the management of the park and ecosystem. The Authority will include representatives from national and county governments, the Maasai community, conservation organizations and the tourism industry. The Authority is intended to ensure professional management of Amboseli and freedom from political interference.
The government advisory team found wide support for the semi-autonomous body across the country. The transfer of Amboseli management to the Kajiado County was endorsed at a public verification meeting at the Bomas of Kenya and subsequently approved by Cabinet and parliament in fulfillment with the legal provisions. Transfer of management functions to the Kajiado County does not transfer the ownership of Amboseli as a national park. Amboseli remains a national park.
The transfer takes place over three years, allowing time for the county and new Amboseli Ecosystem Management Authority to build up the capacity to manage Amboseli to the highest standards. The full retention of revenues by the Kajiado County at the end of the transition period will ensure far more funds are injected into the restoration and management of Amboseli. A substantial portion of the revenues will support Maasai community to sustain wildlife population and improve the livelihoods of Maasai landowners.
Governor Lenku on receiving the transfer of deeds from the president made the following pledge:
“The County Government of Kajiado shall coordinate and recognize communities living around the park to set aside more land for conservation that will include wildlife corridors, wildlife dispersal areas, and conservancies for park viability, and to ensure that at least one million land acres is set aside for conservation. We have game reserves in Kenya, where communities and wildlife coexist together, but we now want to go a notch higher to create a third-generation park. The conservation lands committed by the community, five times the area of the park, shows the community’s commitment to wildlife conservation and tourism.”
President Ruto after viewing posters of the strategic plan for Amboseli noted that the transfer of functions to the Kajiado County was not a withdrawal of national commitment but a renewal of trust in the people. “The people who have protected Amboseli for centuries will now be at the center of its future.”
The vision for a new generation park is a bold step putting people back at the center of Amboseli’s conservation after decades of exclusion and resentment. There are risks, of course, the biggest being land subdivision and fragmentation. Subdivision leading to land fragmentation could jeopardize the future of pastoralism as well as wildlife. Then there is the risk of political interference and mismanagement.
To minimize the risks, the gazette notice transferring the management functions of Amboseli to Kajiado County takes a cautious approach. KWS will remain responsible overall for wildlife security, mitigating conflict, protecting threatened and endangered species and other functions. The transfer covers a 15-year time horizon subject to review.
I see the risks of handing back the custodianship of Amboseli to the Maasai as manageable, and far less than having to fence the park because wildlife has no place in the lives of the surrounding community. If the vision for Amboseli works, it will open the way for parks to win space for wildlife for the mutual benefit of communities across Kenya.
David Western and John Kamanga (left photo) explain to President Ruto the historical coexistenceAmboseli Conservation Program
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