Private Incentives to Preserve a Public Treasure
How Kenya’s Maasai Mara wildlife conservancies impact land, people, and wildlife
Private Land, Public Treasures
For centuries, Kenya’s famed wildlife — prides of lions, dazzles of zebras, herds of elephants, towers of giraffes, and more — have lived and roamed the rangelands across the southwestern part of the country. Increasingly, these rangelands have become private lands overlapped by an expanding human footprint. Migrating wildlife populations have decreased too — numbers in the Maasai Mara plain have fallen by more than half.
COVID-19 was yet another negative turn. During the pandemic, tourism was severely impacted and large parts of the Mara North Conservancy were nearly sold off.
But many acres of land and wildlife were saved thanks to USAID grants to locally-led conservancies that are part of the Maasai Mara Wildlife Conservancies Association (MMWCA).
MMWCA brings together 22 environmental conservancies composed of individual landowners. These landowners receive rental payment for setting land aside for wildlife. Payments are funded largely by tourism fees and, to a lesser extent, support from granting agencies. Since its inception, the conservancy has made incredible impacts — for both people and wildlife.
Organizing Land for Impacts on People AND Wildlife
Pastoralism and grazing have long been central to the livelihoods of those who inhabit the Maasai Mara region, but fence lines, plow lines, and settlements have transformed the ecosystem, squeezing the famed wildlife into an ever more narrow, and ever-less resilient, migration corridor. Protecting what remained of Kenya’s migrating wildlife would require expanding what remained of the Maasai Mara grasslands — wide-open, golden-hued plains that seem to go on endlessly — and working hand-in-hand with private landowners.
For example, the Conservancies of the Maasai Mara ecosystem in southwest Kenya, on the border with Tanzania, includes more than 16,000 landowners and offers invaluable protection to 300,000 hectares of potential habitat for endangered Kenyan wildlife. And each year, the MMWCA, through its associate conservancies, distributes more than $7.5 million to landowners, in addition to creating employment and investing in local services and infrastructure.
The association brings cross-cutting solutions to life — even in the face of major challenges — which I saw recently along with my colleague Adam Phillips, the acting deputy assistant administrator and executive director of USAID’s Local, Faith, and Transformative Partnerships Hub.
We heard firsthand accounts from Maasai landowners, faith-leaders, private sector partners, and women at the MMWCA — including the first-ever MMWCA female wildlife rangers.
The Way Forward for Maasai Mara Conservancies
The good news is that USAID’s assistance here is making a measurable impact. The program’s success stems directly from its ability to provide mutually beneficial solutions and align the public interest with incentives for landowners.
This underscores USAID’s broader approach to localization: amplifying the voices of powerful change agents, providing the resources they need to implement locally-led, sustainable solutions, and doing so in a way that aligns with the principles of effective development cooperation, maximizing ownership, results, inclusivity, transparency, and accountability at the local level.
Payments for ecosystem services, including the lease payments for wildlife habitat piloted by the Maasai Mara Wildlife Conservancy Association, have improved wildlife conservation efforts and increased job opportunities for Kenyans.
“Now, purebred cattle graze alongside elephants and zebras in this iconic, rural Kenyan reserve, in large part because of our simple, smart and game-changing investments — it’s a tremendous success story,” Adam noted. “This is just one reason why centering local communities and leaders in 50% of our programming is a key Agency priority.”
Already, the MMWCA has plans to continue adding additional conservancies and conservancy lands through the program.
MMWCA still faces other big challenges: gender equity, sustainability, and climate change. But when we consider mentorship opportunities to create a more sustainable model for local leadership — requiring the MMWCA Wildlife College to include female students, having program participants become our development partners, and so much more — we can see the opportunity stemming from just this one program.
The story of the Maasai Mara Wildlife Conservancies is one of continuous adaptation, iteration, and learning.
Building the conservancies required trust, adapting terms to local situations and markets, and continuously fine-tuning to what works for wildlife, what works for tourism, and what works for the residents and landowners of the Maasai Mara ecosystem.
About the Author
Michele Sumilas is the Assistant to the Administrator in USAID’s Bureau for Policy, Planning and Learning.
