CRSP study on wildlife, livestock and human interaction in Kajiado District in Kenya: results of the economic study

Abstract

1.1 The economic study of the wildlife, livestock and human interaction in Kajiado District of Kenya focused on the case of the Amboseli National Park wildlife dispersal areas encompassing the Kimana Group Ranch and the Mbirikani Group Ranch. The main objective of the study was to examine the economics of livestock keeping within the game reserves wildlife dispersal areas, including a documentation of the following: (i) other economic activities that compete with livestock keeping in these areas;

(ii) the magnitude of income and/or losses due to wildlife, ecotoursim and other non-livestock keeping activities in the said wildlife dispersal areas. 1.2 Pastoral livestock and other human economic activities have coexisted with wildlife in the East African rangelands for hundreds of years. This interaction has come under stress in the last few decades, and is turning into conflicts over the use resources. These conflicts especially intensified after implementation of a land reform program that transferred pastoral trustlands into group ranches, individual ranches and private agricultural holdings in the mid-1960s in Kajiado District. The change of property rights to pastoral rangelands from communal ownership to group ownership and recently to private ownership has brought the conflicts to a new level whereby the prospects for sustained coexistence is diminishing. This research project also attempts to evaluate the prospects for continued coexistence of pastoral livestock and other human economic activities by analysing the nature of conflicts as well as identifying possibilities for resolving some of these conflicts, at least by searching for avenues of mitigating costs imposed by wildlife on pastoralists and their economic activities.