Amboseli National Park is home to some of Kenya’s largest elephant populations which depend on the surrounding community land for migration. In 2008, the land stakeholders recognized that the habitat loss threats, degradation, and fragmentation would lead to the loss of livelihoods and tourism revenue and opted to ensure the ecosystem’s sustainability. IFAW therefore partnered with relevant stakeholders to secure critical corridors and dispersal areas for elephants in community areas of the Amboseli landscape. To achieve this, IFAW implemented a multi-year commitment to secure 26,000 acres as wildlife migratory and dispersal land in the Amboseli landscape (the Kitenden Corridor, one of the last remaining elephant migratory corridors connecting Kenya and Tanzania).
The strategy for the leased land was to develop the Kitenden Community Wildlife Conservancy, which will continue to offer a three pronged benefit to wildlife and its habitat, the local community (through eco-friendly, compatible tourism, and enterprise projects), and investors through tourism development and investment. In 2017, IFAW worked with the local Maasai community to register the Kitenden Conservancy Trust - an important step toward securing this portion of land as a community-owned conservancy that supports sustainable livelihoods.
IFAW partnered with the community of the Olgulului Olalarashi Group Ranch (OOGR, which surrounds 90 percent of the park) in order to ensure that the wildlife protection benefits were connected to human wellbeing improvements. For example, the securing of the Kitenden Corridor would not have been possible without IFAW’s commitment to sign separate agreements with 2,600 indigenous landowners. This has led to remarkable benefits for both the people of the community and the wildlife of the Amboseli National Park. Combining the expertise of science-based wildlife conservation and development initiatives within the community turned out to be essential and should be applied to future projects. Incorporating community input in a structured and profound way has led to unique interventions tailored for this specific community and interventions that are sustainable and popular among the community. Both the local leadership and the community have been heavily involved since the beginning of the project.