Land spat threatens wildlife conservation in Maasai Mara

The giraffes peeked out from above the trees, perhaps curious to see what the hullabaloo was all about.

Sensing danger, a herd of wildebeest grazing nearby beat a hasty retreat across the fields.

What had been an ordinary Saturday morning last September in the Maasai Mara, one of Kenya 's most important conservation areas, had been disrupted by club-wielding pastoralists from the Maasai community driving herds of cattle into land set aside for wildlife.

Incidents like this are becoming more common in a land dispute that has unfolded over the past year pitting the Maasai Mara Wildlife Conservancies Association (MMWCA) against a splinter group of livestock farmers.

The farmers lease parcels of their land to tourism operators through the MMWCA, which they accuse of cutting landowners out of key decisions and not paying them a fair slice of tourism profits.

The farmers now want to renege on contracts with the MMWCA that are not set to expire until 2025.

The outcome of the dispute could have a profound impact on the future of wildlife in and around Maasai Mara National Reserve.

For decades, Kenya's conservation model has successfully demonstrated that wildlife, including endangered species, can survive outside fenced reserve areas if pastoral communities are able to reap a financial benefit from wildlife preservation.

Conservancy agreements with farmers keep land adjacent to wildlife reserves open for migrating animals.

Without such arrangements, cattle ranching, crop cultivation and human settlements could all threaten wildlife habitats and grazing lands.

The idea is to create a virtuous circle between landowners, wildlife and tourism. Landowners make money leasing parcels of their property adjacent to reserves to tourism operators via conservancies.

The wildlife is protected, drawing in tourists and further benefiting local communities financially.

Over the past decade, the lion population in MMWCA's 15 conservancies has doubled. And tourism benefits some 3,000 households in the Mara, according to the Kenya Wildlife Conservancies Association.

But long-held suspicions that the system benefits tourism operators more than landowners spilled into the open late last year, following a change in how the conservancies are managed.

Regardless of how the conflict began, it shows no signs of abating. That could have dire consequences for a tourist trade that has boosted conservation and the bottom lines of non-landowning members of local communities.