Community-based rangeland management in the southern Kenyan rangelands (ເຄັນຢາ)

Olkiramatian Group Ranch strengthened the capacity of its community governance structures and began to engage in more rigorous implementation of seasonal grazing plans. This was based on traditional ecological knowledge and rangeland management practices. The group ranch incorporated conservation, research, and joint rangeland management planning with neighboring communities.

Prior to implementation of the approach described here, rangeland management was carried out through customary institutions supported by a group ranch committee. However, many challenges hindered effective management of livestock and natural resources. These included:
• Poor financial management
• Lack of accountability from the leaders - and lack of demand for accountability from the members
• Conflicting group and individual interests
• Lack of a written constitution and grazing by-laws to reinforce traditional decision making.
To minimize and overcome some of these weaknesses, the African Conservation Centre (ACC), a conservation NGO and Southern Rift Association of Land Owners (SORALO), a Maasai land trust, worked with Olkiramatian and other communities to help them strengthen their planning and governance and to reinvigorate the traditional system of grazing management. Initially, ACC worked with the community’s governance and resource management committees to build local capacity for decision-making and resource management. Institutions previously responsible for resource management, which had existed under traditional systems, had begun to weaken from both internal and external pressures, undermining the long-term sustainability and equity of rangeland management. The group ranch emerged as the key modern institution within this community and needed to be strengthened to support traditional management. To do this several sequential steps were taken:
(i) First, the group ranch committee instituted a more objective way of identifying and electing office holders, to ensure a credible base for resource governance and building consensus among resource users;
(ii) Registration of group ranch members was re-initiated to ensure equal access and rights to resource use, and to provide clarity around membership;
(iii) Institutions responsible for rangeland management, including the group ranch committee, and the conservation and grazing subcommittees, were reinforced primarily through the strengthening of internal capacity;
(iv) ACC facilitated a process for consolidating the group ranch's governance and by-laws to help guide the implementation of the strategy, including enforcement;
(v) The group ranch implemented provisions for holding leaders accountable, allowing the group ranch members to demand their rights;
(vi) Decision-making processes were facilitated by laying down procedures for sharing information and apportioning responsibilities among the leadership - as decided at annual general meetings;
(vii) Rangeland monitoring groups and rangers, mostly local youth, were trained and positioned;
(viii) Finally, the Lale’enok Resource Centre was established, together with community enterprises based on the use of natural resources. A women’s group was included.
An important catalyst in the approach was the establishment of a community conservation area and lodge within the group ranch for the development of wildlife tourism. The conservation area capitalized on the existence of the community’s dry season reserve where wildlife such as zebra and giraffes were abundant , which is only grazed by livestock after pasture is utilized elsewhere. This creation of a conservation area, coupled with the desire to generate revenue through tourism with its semi-exclusive access rights to parts of the conservation area, worked to reaffirm the traditional grazing management strategies by preventing settlement within the conservation area and encouraging longer resting of pasture following rain. This happened alongside the development of a research program , which has helped to put community rangeland management on an evidence-based foundation.
With guidance, the community revised its grazing plan and zoned its land into four resource use areas, now embodied in the new group ranch constitution:
- Conservation or wildlife areas (which then allowed the creation of the conservancy);
- Agricultural/crop production areas;
- Livestock grazing areas (dry season and wet grazing areas);
- Human settlements.
The grazing sub-committee of the group ranch makes and implements decisions on livestock access to certain areas, with pasture rested between and across seasons. The conservancy is rested from livestock grazing as a “grass bank” during the wet seasons, which can last up to 6 months . Settlement areas are also tightly managed under this approach to preserve pasture heterogeneity and prevent local degradation. Fines are imposed on herders who break grazing regulations. On a rolling basis the communities now utilize traditional ecological knowledge, ecological monitoring and expert knowledge, to reassess these grazing regimes under changing conditions. These rangeland management activities are also nested within joint, inter-community planning such as regular meetings of the grazing committees of clusters of group ranches.