This was a literature-based investigation into the status of Kenya’s community-based wildlife conservancies. Over the past 30 years, wildlife conservancies in Kenya have proliferated. There are currently 167 conservancies covering 11 percent of Kenya’s landmass. This is more than the area of national parks, which covers around eight percent of the total area. Kenya’s conservancies are spread across various regions encompassing diverse ecosystems from savanna rangelands to forests and marine environments. Two-thirds of Kenya’s wildlife populations exist outside formal state-managed areas on land co-habited by humans, thus making the conservation of wildlife dependable on finding ways for rural communities to become involved in the management and governance of wildlife conservation.

Investigation conclusion: The signs of conservancy effectiveness throughout Kenya’s regional conservancy associations are promising. While there are many (mostly developmental) challenges that differ from region to region, Kenya’s community conservancies overall appear to be the solution in preventing the decline in wildlife populations, loss of biodiversity and rural community impoverishment.

The published report can be found here.