CONSERVING COEXISTENCE

It is estimated that a significant proportion of Kenya’s wildlife is found outside of formally protected areas, mainly on community land. In the light of national declines in wildlife, community areas have become critical for biodiversity conservation across the country. The Maasai have lived with wildlife for centuries through their traditional semi-nomadic pastoral lifestyle, and what could be called a ‘culture of coexistence’. Given this, the conserving coexistence programme puts communities and their livelihoods first, which can subsequently create safe space for wildlife and people. Our work under this programme includes supporting our regional network of community game scouts, helping prevent and manage human-carnivore conflict through our Rebuilding the Pride programme, and assisting communities to develop and manage their conservancies

Community Games Scouts

We currently support 35 community scouts to help communities protect their natural resources. Scouts patrol daily within community lands to prevent environmental crimes, ranging from poaching to illegal logging. They also act as mediators in any human-wildlife incidents, communicating with the KWS (Kenya Wildlife Service), rescuing wounded animals, removing wildlife snares and keeping people and their livestock safe

Rebuilding the Pride

Our Rebuilding the Pride (RTP) programme focuses on large carnivores, such as lions, cheetahs, leopards, and hyenas. The purpose of RTP is to monitor potentially harmful wildlife species and then share information on their movements with local livestock herders. Part of this work is to assist the local herders prepare the necessary paperwork in order to seek compensation through the Kenya Wildlife Service . For more on RTP’s work, visit their Instagram or Facebook pages

Developing and Managing Community Conservancies

SORALO currently works with three community conservancies (Shompole, Olkiramatian and Suswa) and helps with supporting the game scouts who operate in each place. SORALO also works in areas where a conservancy is in the planning (Olorgesilie) or in areas where the local communities have other mechanisms for protecting their resources (Loita). SORALO plays a role in assisting the local governance bodies (conservation committees or group ranch leaders) formulate conservation plans

PROTECTING OPEN RANGELANDS

Keeping pastoral rangelands open is core to achieving our vision of a healthy and intact landscape for people and wildlife. In fact, it is the underpinning of all of our work. We use a range of tools in order to tackle securing and strengthening community rights to their land, including assigning communities create Land Use Plans and other appropriate methods of securing communal land and resources. We further assist communities to integrate their plans into existing and proposed national and county plans and support the creating of new management models such as community conservancies and pooling subdivided lands back into collective management units

SUPPORTING CONSERVATION LIVELIHOODS

The wellbeing of people is central to the wellbeing of the environment. By strengthening the livelihoods of Maasai people – whether that means pastoralism or new forms of enterprise – SORALO is supporting a culture of coexistence. Our work with conservation livelihoods involves strengthening the main local livelihood of pastoralism, supporting the development of tourism investment in the region, and working to develop viable small-scale women’s and youth enterprises linked to sustainable rangeland managment

CULTURAL LEADERSHIP

The SORALO landscape is one of the last remaining strongholds of Maasai culture in Kenya. SORALO recognises the critical importance of the Maasai cultural values in enabling continued co-existence of people and wildlife within the landscape and we actively promote traditional knowledge, values and culture in ways that reinforce those values and assist their perpetuation in the face of social change. Aside from the active inclusion of traditional knowledge in all our programmes, we are also pioneering a Pastoral Conservation Leadership course aimed at supporting local community members become conservation champions. This course begins within the local wildlife clubs at the local schools, where we have tailor-made a culturally sensitive wildlife clubs lesson guide

INFORMATION FOR ACTION

SORALO believes in supporting its conservation work with credible information and sound science. We believe that information should be collected with accuracy and rigour, but with understanding of the local context and incorporation of traditional knowledge. We believe that information should be shared across a variety of ‘users’ from herders on the front-line, to academic audiences across the world. To this end, we established a field centre, the Lale’enok Resource Centre, based in Olkiramatian. Here information about the ecosystem is collected by Maasai resource assessors, stored, analysed and shared with many different audiences

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