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Wildlife Conservancies in the Maasai Mara, Kenya

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Wildlife Conservancies in the Maasai Mara, Kenya Conservation, tourism and pastoral livelihoods: Wildlife conservancies in the Maasai Mara, Kenya Claire Bedelian University College London PhD Thesis 2014 1 ‘I, Claire Bedelian, confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the thesis.' …………………………………….. 2 Abstract The pastoral rangelands of the Mara in Kenya have been a hotspot of evolving conservation and development initiatives. However, these initiatives have tended not to produce positive outcomes for either people or wildlife. At the same time, pastoral policies have promoted the privatisation of rangelands, subdividing the land to individual ownership. Within this backdrop, a number of wildlife conservancies have been recently set up where tourism investors pay Maasai landowners to vacate their land of settlements and livestock. As market-driven approaches that have profound impacts on the way land is viewed, used and managed in the Mara, this thesis situates itself within the growing body of literature on neoliberal conservation. The study takes a mixed methods approach to evaluate these initiatives for pastoral livelihoods and the environment. Using a political ecology lens it analyses the nature of the partnership between the tourism investors and Maasai landowners and the levels of participation and power between different actors. It investigates the contribution of wildlife conservancies to pastoral livelihoods, and uses evaluation techniques to assess the impact of participation in conservancies on pastoral livelihoods. It also examines the resultant settlement and livestock grazing displacement and the implications this has for livelihoods and the wider landscape. The thesis finds that conservancies can contribute large incomes from tourism to participating households. However, this is not more than the contribution of livestock, meaning that conservancy land use restrictions create considerable trade-offs for livestock-based livelihoods. Also, since payments are based on land ownership, and a previously inequitable system of land distribution, there are considerable inequity implications of such schemes as poor and marginalised groups tend to be left out. Furthermore, although conservancies are positive in keeping the range open for wildlife inside of conservancies, this must be considered in light of the displacement effects to non-conservancy areas. 3 Acknowledgements I am extremely grateful to my supervisor, Katherine Homewood. Thank you for your intellectual calm guidance, your insightful comments, and amazing speed at always getting back to me. Being part of the Human Ecology Research Group was really useful for learning broadly about Human Ecology research issues and ideas from all parts of the world. Thanks to the group for the constructive feedback and comments whenever I presented my work. Thanks also to Sara Randall and Phil Burnham for earlier comments and input during the upgrade stage of the thesis. I would also like to thank Aidan Keane for very helpful comments on using evaluation techniques. My PhD studentship, field work expenses and language training was provided through a NERC/ESRC PhD studentship. Additional funding was provided by The Parkes Foundation, the UCL Graduate School, and the Land Deal Politics Initiative. I am grateful to the Directorate of Resource Surveys and Remote Sensing (DRSRS) in Kenya for use of their livestock data, and to Planet Action for the SPOT 5 satellite images. In Kenya, I would like to thank the Government of Kenya for giving me permission to conduct my research in Kenya, and the Narok County Council and the different Mara Conservancies for allowing me to carry out my research in the Mara. I would like to thank the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) for providing institutional and intellectual support. Within ILRI, many thanks to Mohammed Said, Joseph Ogutu, Jan de Leeuw, Jeff Worden, Mario Herrero, Polly Ericksen and Philip Osano for stimulating discussions at different stages of my work. I would especially like to thank Joseph Ogutu for his methodological and statistical guidance and incisive comments at various points along the course of the PhD. Thanks to Nicholas Ndiwa and Jane Poole, for help on stats when needed. Also to Shem Kifugo; I really appreciate all the help as I learnt more about GIS. I would also like to thank Zipporah Musyimi for working with me on the identification of settlements. Lastly, thanks to Mats Lannerstad for the cuppas, cookies and air in the final stages, and making sure I stayed on track. To everyone in the Mara, this research wouldn’t have been possible without your help, time and support. Thank you for inviting me into your homes, for the sweet milky teas, and patience to talk with me. Thanks to Daniel Naurori for excellent research assistance and guiding me around the Mara. Thanks to James Kaigil, Dickson Kaelo and Rob O’ Meara for repeated visits and also being a wealth of information. I would like to thank my research assistants, Philip, John, Peter, Ntimama, Keswe, and Josephat. Also thanks to Chris Parsitau for your meticulous translation and for helping me learn Maa. I am indebted to Vivian and Lucy for helping me look after Anabelle, and everyone at Aruba for being so friendly and welcoming. Thanks to all our wider Maasai friends and colleagues too numerous to mention here; thank you for always welcoming us to the Mara, for organising our Maasai wedding, and for all the help and support along the way. Ashe Oleng. Lastly, I would like to thank my family and friends for all the encouragement and support over the last few years. To Anabelle, Oliver and Emily, who were all born within the time of this PhD, you greatly enriched the PhD journey, as you have our lives in so many wonderful ways. Anabelle, I’ll fondly remember the time we spent together in the field. To Oliver and Emily, you joined for the less fun parts of data analysis and writing up; sorry for the crazy work schedule close to the end. Finally, thanks to Matt for all the love and support, in so many ways over the last few years, and especially in the last couple of intense writing months for taking the kids out and giving me time and space to finish. 4 Table of Contents Chapter 1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 13 1.1 Changing narratives of conservation ..................................................................................... 14 1.1.1 Fortress conservation ...................................................................................................... 14 1.1.2 Community conservation ................................................................................................ 15 1.1.3 Back to the barriers ......................................................................................................... 17 1.1.4 Neoliberal conservation .................................................................................................. 18 1.1.5 Changing and overlapping conservation narratives........................................................ 22 1.2 Neoliberal conservation approaches ..................................................................................... 23 1.2.1 (Eco)Tourism ................................................................................................................... 23 1.2.2 Payments for ecosystem services (PES) .......................................................................... 27 1.2.3 Private sector-led conservation ...................................................................................... 32 1.3 Pastoralism, livelihoods and conservation ............................................................................. 36 1.3.1 View that pastoralism is an unproductive, degrading land use ...................................... 37 1.3.2 Pastoral alienation in favour of competing land uses ..................................................... 39 1.3.3 Pastoralist livelihoods and the need to diversify ............................................................ 40 1.4 Tourism, conservancies and wildlife in Kenya ....................................................................... 42 1.5 Research questions and thesis structure ............................................................................... 44 Chapter 2 Study Area ....................................................................................................................... 47 2.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 47 2.2 The Maasai ............................................................................................................................. 47 2.3 Maasailand ............................................................................................................................. 48 2.3.1 Privatisation .................................................................................................................... 50 2.3.2 Subdivision ...................................................................................................................... 51 2.4 The Mara ................................................................................................................................ 53 2.4.1 The Maasai Mara National Reserve (MMNR) ................................................................. 55 2.4.2
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