Amboseli as a Biosphere Reserve

Please note: I have re-written (condensed, improved) these in a PowerPoint presentation that is too large to post here. You can see them, however, in an Adobe Acrobat pdf file of the presentation that is listed in the documents above as AMBOSELI BIOSPHERE RESERVE_080523.pdf.

Conservation

• In general, the Amboseli wildlife population is healthy and can still provide a major attractor for wildlife-viewing-based tourism and potential generator of income for the community.
• The greatest threats to sustainable wildlife conservation in the Buffer Zone are: permanent settlements along the National Park boundary; fragmentation of the ecosystem through on-going sub-division of Group Ranches; competition for water and grazing (especially in the Core, in and around the central swamps); the bushmeat trade; spearing of lions and elephants; degradation of swamps and wetlands.
• The most urgent conservation goal must be to ensure wildlife access to dispersal areas by means of a lasting compact based on equitable benefit sharing with the surrounding Maasai community
• Zonation: Kuku Group Ranch should be included in the Biosphere Reserve Buffer Zone. A Transition Zone comprising all of Kajiado District is unrealistic; the Ilkisongo ecozone is the logical alternative. The Buffer should include a ‘Tight Buffer’, a 5-10 km settlement-free with in which rules of behaviour and occupancy are firmly laid out.
• There needs to be a modest investment in bringing baseline ecosystem-data up-to-date, for example, migrating DRSRS table files into GIS, updating the existing waterpoints dataset.
• An updated census of the resident and migratory birds in the National Park is urgently needed; ecological studies of bird species assemblages would be most useful.
• The hydrology of the Kilimanjaro catchment vis a vis the Amboseli swamp system is little understood and urgently needs study as a basis of life in the ecosystem.

Development

• Management of the current situation. An emergency plan of action needs to be implemented immediately to ensure management continuity and equitable distribution of revenues until legal ownership of Amboseli National Park is established and accepted (see Follow-on Activities for one suggestion).
• There exists a serious policy vacuum: at the national level, there is no general landuse plan; at the ecosystem level, there is no zoning and management plan. A national plan is under development, but will face many existing situations that will be difficult to reverse.
• The stakeholders who live in the Buffer Zone must formulate their own community vision of how they want the ecosystem to be in the future. This will help them be proactive in the face of corrupt politicians and profiteers from the outside.
• Development of strategies of payment for ecosystem services (PES) appears to be a promising way forward to ensure the long term integrity of the Buffer Zone, if a suitable policy environment and management authority can be put in place and maintained.
• Employment, as with much of the country, is arguably the most important development path goal for the individual.
• The refurbishment of boreholes in the Buffer Zone appears essential to reducing grazing and watering pressure on the Core; must be properly funded, managed and maintained, including ‘wildlife-proofing’ of the infrastructure. An urgent review of borehole status in the ecosystem is necessary.
• ‘Designer Herds’?: there is a need to consider a campaign to shift the pastoralist’s vision to quality rather than quantity, since it is clear the Maasai will never completely abandon their cattle for other forms of landuse.
• Sedentarisation per se is not a threat to wildlife; unplanned sedentarisation and the attendant mushrooming of half-baked infrastructure without regard to ecosystem dispersal areas and corridors is a serious threat.
• Development aid should focus on providing quality infrastructure (working boreholes, schools, clinics, adult education centres) away from the National Park boundaries to serve as ‘attractors’ to pull settlement away from the Core edge and to provide a better quality of life for the community.
• Corruption within the Group Ranch Committees and at the local political level is a universally-identified impediment to development, but there are hopeful signs in some committees that the newly-elected members are working in a more transparent and professional manner within grass-roots coordinating bodies, such as ATGRCA and ATGSA (Amboseli/Tsavo Group Ranch Conservation and Game Scouts Associations).
• The impact of expanding agriculture cannot be underestimated; the growing threat of human-wildlife conflict and negative impacts on water resources must be addressed.

Logistics

• Crucial long term monitoring and research of ecosystem processes and key species such as elephants must be encouraged both to provide current data necessary for management of a non-equilibrium arid system as well as to maintain a ‘competitive edge’ with regard to the foundation for wildlife-based tourism enterprises.
• Information centres for visitors at key points of entry, waiting and gathering are totally lacking in and around the park. A few well-planned and managed ‘cultural bomas’ would introduce visitors to Maasai culture.
• The mess of uncontrolled and unplanned development within Ol Tukai (the 160 Ha unprotected commercial zone within the Core) needs urgent planning and management attention on the part of the Olkejuado County council.
• The profiteering of tour drivers is drastically reducing benefits to Maasai. participants in ‘cultural boma’ events and is creating incentives for adverse infrastructure development that blocks wildlife corridors. The tour companies must be forced to discipline their drivers, with enforced penalties for misconduct (including off-road driving).
• There is an urgent need to train a new generation of local scientists to carry on the work from an aging group of expatriates.
• An Amboseli Biosphere Reserve website should be considered, the contents of which could include a ‘living’ version of this inventory report, summaries of ‘best practices’, news of the ecosystem, etc.

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HC