670049493
Kenya’s Cultural Diversity poses both challenges and opportunities for the conservation of its wildlife How is the transformation of the pastoralist way of life impacting on conservation efforts in Kenya? new avenues to economic freedom, however money from tourism rarely trickles down to the locals and many remain impoverished [7]. Post-colonial politics continued the colonial doctrine of separating wildlife and people and continuing land ownership in the hands of the wealthy few [7].
Introduction Traditional pastoralism is typically a subsistence system of farming with patriarchal families reliant on milk over meat for nutrition, selling animals to get cash for other economic needs and building herds for social status, wealth and buffering against risk [1]. During Kenya’s colonial era, large tracts of the land traditionally used by pastoralists were expropriated and many ethnic groups were moved into less productive areas and lost the lands they relied on in harder seasons [2].
Conflict amongst Pastoralists Analysis of the original development initiatives for community conservation in the north of Kenya, show that plans were not enacted properly with full consultation with the pastoralist communities and intra ethnic conflict has been a historical issue hampering conservation efforts [8].
The areas that many of these groups were moved to include a large region of Central Northern Kenya including the counties of Samburu and Laikipia – the focus areas of this review. Various scholars, [3] and [4], point to the apparent successes for wildlife conservation in these counties, where private conservation enterprises, as opposed to Government run national parks and reserves that are elsewhere in the country, have achieved greater biodiversity and greater numbers of large animals. This success is largely attributable to the owners of private ranches in these areas utilising tourism as important sources of revenue [3]. However, pastoralists from many ethnic groups [5] who must also scrape a living from these areas are undergoing transitions [6] in their culture, leading to societal change and the drive for economic modernization [1]. Some Pastoralists are looking to the tourism industry which is often based on Kenya’s wildlife for
Kaye-Zwiebel and King [1] contend that the process of creating conservation areas is ‘participatory ‘ in all their study areas in Laikipia. However, Greiner [9] during her investigation of the creation of the Ltungai Community Based Conservancy by the Northern Rangelands Trust (NRT) found that conflict was inadvertently caused between the neighbouring Samburu and Pokot (who had previously shared resources) during the process which although participatory by some, was not inclusive to all. The Samburu were not supposed to make the area exclusive but effectively made a land grab against their neighbours. The research did not explain why the NRT had not as an umbrella organisation brought the Pokot along to meetings when they knew this was a shared area, and although 1 of 7