Wildlife conservation from within Kenyan pastoralist communities

Islands of protected areas cannot secure all the space needed to sustain biodiversity and ecosystem function at a global scale and in the face of climate change. Conserving biodiversity on a landscape scale depends on finding adequate space and a meaningful place in the lives of land users. In the article “Conservation from the inside-out: winning space and a place for wildlife in working landscapes”, published in People & Nature 2020;00:1–13 (DOI: 10.1002/pan3.10077), David Western et al use a case study in southern Kenya to show that large open landscapes, biodiversity and coexistence between wildlife and livestock can be conserved by reinforcing pastoral practices that depend on open space, mobility, social networks and institutional arrangements governing common-pool resources.

Pastoral practices and wildlife both depend on large multi-scale interactions within interlinked social and ecological systems, which are threatened by land fragmentation, alienation and degradation. The approach starts with community aspirations emphasising the links between livelihoods, productivity, efficiency and resilience in pastoral economies and the secondary benefits of wildlife enterprises. Scaling up to a multi-scale approach benefits pastoralist communities by building resilience and new economic opportunities, while conserving large free-ranging herbivore and carnivore populations underpinning ecosystem function and the tourism industry centred on the Kenya–Tanzania boundary.

This “inside-out” approach to conserving biodiversity is place-based, draws on local knowledge and informal governance arrangements, and avoids the stigma of wildlife conservation driven by outside agencies.

Posted on 9 March 2020 in Pastoralism & Natural Resources, Pastoralism, Mobility & Land Tenure, Pastoralist Livelihoods & Nutrition