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How Ranchers Benefit From Wild Game

The Nation (Nairobi)

OPINION
June 18, 2005
Wycliffe Muga
Nairobi

The Institute of Policy and Analysis Research (IPAR), recently came up with a paper titled "Policy dimensions in Human/Wildlife conflicts in Kenya".

As reported in the media, the conclusion that the IPAR researchers came up with was that "involving local government communities in wildlife management decisions would reduce conflict".

When an outfit like IPAR issues a report, we expect it to tell us something that we don't know.

Yet, it was offering as some great revelation, something that every writer on wildlife conservation has been talking about for long.

The debate has long moved from "what is to be done?" to "how is this to be done?"

Ideal relationship

At the time that the newspapers carried reports of the IPAR findings, there were two other news reports which pointed to the way forward, as concerns what should be the ideal relationship between Kenya's wildlife and the communities that live in close proximity to them. Both reports were written in relation to the Delamare case.

The first appeared in the Sunday Nation of May 29, which gave a background on the relationship between the Kenya Wildlife Services (KWS), the large landowners (like the Delamare family) and the group ranch members in the Naivasha area.

Part of the report made this point: "An animal census carried out towards the end of the last decade, indicated that ranches such as Soysambu and Marula had more than 10,000 animals each, almost equaling or even exceeding the livestock numbers."

This statement deserves some attention. Why would wealthy ranchers like the Delamares, who have the resources to build paddocks and keep wildlife out of their land, nonetheless allow the population of wild animals to exceed that of livestock? Why this tolerance towards the presence of wild animals on private land?

The answer to this is one of those counter-intuitive facts of economics which at first glance seem irrational, but are nonetheless valid, and describe something well known to owners of large tracts of land in South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe and even Zambia.

And that fact is this: In a "safari tourism" country like Kenya, if you own a large piece of land, then provided a government gives appropriate incentives, you can make more money from having wild animals on your land.

Up to the late 1990s, the KWS allowed, culling quotas to those who hosted wildlife on their land. This meant that to keep the increasing wildlife populations under control, the ranchers were given licences permitting them to kill a certain number of the wild animals on their land, over a period of time.

As the culling quotas were based on a wildlife census, it was in the interest of the ranchers to support a maximum number of wild animals on their land.

According to that Sunday Nation report, Mr Tom Cholmondley, who was (in the late 1990s) the chairman of the Nakuru Wildlife Forum, said the following during the 50th anniversary of the National Parks in Nakuru:

"Our collaboration with KWS has benefited us immensely. We have started sanctuaries, water projects and trading ventures. In future we will introduce ecotourism and other projects-.. Where wildlife animals were destroying crops, they are now paying for community projects."

But, somewhat inexplicably, the KWS stopped issuing those culling quotas, and this turned the economics of wildlife conservation against the ranchers as much as against the wild animals.

The second news item of that period which reveals something about the relationship between wild animals and communities, concerned the Maasai communities that live in the Naivasha area.

When Mr Cholmondley was first released after the nolle prosequi entered by the Attorney General, some members of the Maasai community (to which the late Samson Ole Sisina - the KWS ranger allegedly shot by Mr Cholmondley - belonged) threatened to block the road leading to the Maasai Mara Game Reserve as a protest.

A matter of strategy

But that threat was never effected. The next thing we heard was a statement from the self-styled Maasai spokesman, Cabinet Minister William Ntimama, to the effect that the protest had been postponed as a matter of strategy. And that was the last anyone heard about it.

But the reason for this sudden change is not hard to figure out. Although the animals in the fabled Maasai Mara belong to ll Kenyans, at least in theory, the game reserve itself is an asset of the Narok and Transmara county councils. And the Mara Conservancy which manages this prime tourist attraction on behalf of these two civic councils, reportedly generates for them a collective average of Sh 100 million a year.

So in blocking that road, the protesters would in effect have blocked the flow of revenues into their own local councils. They would have been the biggest losers.

Arguably, this realisation could have played a big part in that "change of strategy" that Mr Ntimama spoke about.

But the greater point is that whether it is a civic body, or a group ranch, on an individual rancher that owns an expansive piece of land, the truth is that hosting wildlife on such land can be far more profitable than keeping livestock.

Think tanks like IPAR should be telling us how this concept can be extended to other parts of the country, rather than merely re-stating the obvious.

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