Conceptual approach to some land use problems in kajiado district

Abstract

This thesis pertains to a particular area. of Kenya, namely Kajiado district, economically, thin area has considerable significance as a livestock rearing area and for wildlife viewing and hunting. There is also an agriculture around Loitokitok in the foothills of Kilimanjaro. The majority of the area is plains and bush which is concurrently utilized by domestic and wild -took apart from the national parka from which livestock is excluded. The importance of this area is reflected in the fact that considerable development of both the wildlife and livestock sectors is being carried out. The livestock sector is being expanded and intensified under the World bank Livestock Development Plan, while wildlife utilisation activities are being reorganized and increased by the UNDP/ PAO Wildlife Management Project. In order to allow this thesis to delve to meaningful depths the scope of this study has been restricted to the plains area of Kajiado District where the main potential forms of land use are by livestock and/or game. Since the major emphasis in the World Bank Livestock Development Plan is on cattle production this thesis has been limited to a consideration of the cattle industry only, though currently there are substantial numbers of sheep and goats which play an important role in the Maasai subsistence economy. On the wildlife side, discussion is limited to those forms of utilization which are under review by the Wildlife Management Project, namely, tourism, hunting, cropping and live capture. dome forms of wildlife utilization are dependent on the rate of offtake, namely hunting, cropping and capture, while tourism la not. As discussed in the relevant section, tourism is the most valuable fern of wildlife utilization but it receives less emphasis in this thesis than the former types of utilization. The reason for this is that one objective of this thesis is. using a conceptual approach, to develop offtake rate formulae far the wildlife and cattle sectors. However, the application of these formulae are subjective since the data required to determine the offtake rates will vary between areas and species and in many cases the data may not be available. On the basis of the cattle offtake rate formula, potential revenue formulae have been developed. As far as the wildlife sector is concerned there is insufficient data on the demand situation within the hunting, cropping and capture activities to usefully develop potential revenue formulae. However, since the overall concern of this thesis is with land use optimization the existing values of these forms of utilization have boon examined, and, in order to provide a true picture the value of tourism is also discussed. The second objective of this thesis is to determine the problems of defining and implementing an optimum land use pattern, which includes the utilization of e renewable natural resource, in Kaajiado District. In order to fulfill these objectives the thesis has been set out as follows Chapter I is a description of Kajiado District so that a full background is provided, statistics are included to give a fuller understanding but are not used later on because of the conceptual approach which has been adopted. Chapter II is concerned with the conceptual development of offtake rate and potential revenue formulae for the settle industry. Chapter III is devoted to a discussion of wildlife utilization activities. Firstly, offtake rate formulae ere developed using a conceptual approach and secondly the value of each form of wildlife utilization is examined. Chapter IF outlines the principles of land planning and discusses the way in which these apply to Kajiado District. It is also concerned with the way in which land planning techniques to determine the optimum intensity and distribution of cattle and wildlife utilization activities wight be applied to this area. Chapter V is the concluding chapter end discuses the problems facing land planners and outlines the neat pressing questions need to be answered.