By Liz Anyango
Narok County, Kenya: It is a typical day in the life of Nolkireu Wantai, who is a Pastoralist.
Wantai seems happy while herding her livestock, which looks healthy and well managed in an environment that is shockingly grass rich.
One cannot help but wonder how this is possible considering the ongoing drought situation that continues to ravage various parts of Kenya, even causing a stir as it contributes to the current increase in food prices.
This is a picture of The Oloisukut Group Conservancy, a 23,000-acre area of community land which borders the world-famous Maasai Mara Game Reserve to the North in the area formerly called Trans Mara District, now in Narok County.
Leonard Kinanta who is a Livestock, Monitoring and Evaluation Officer in the Oloisukut Conservancy, confirms that indeed the conservancy has managed to beat the odds despite the ongoing drought situation in the country.
“We pride ourselves on a systematic yet effective Grazing Plan that has not only given birth to an integration between wildlife, animals, and humans but has also eradicated the diverse effects of drought in our land.”
However, according to Leonard, this Grazing Plan, like Rome, was not built in a day.
“Just like other parts of the country, droughts are common, more persistent, with devastating impact in the Oloisukut Conservancy. In fact, before the Plan, our members would take their livestock as far as 20 kilometers away in search of pasture, and the situation was consistent with some even going as far as Tanzania.”
Further, Leonard notes that this situation was dire and desperately needed a long-term, effective solution.
“In 2018, the conservancy realized that climate change did not favor the ancient cattle keeping practice we kept as a people which signifies wealth is pastoralism. The solution: The Grass Banks of the Oloisukut Conservancy – a grazing plan used by the Oloisukut Conservancy.”
Taking our seats under a tree inside the Conservancy, we are eager to learn about this plan that has made the Oloisukut Conservancy a living proof of the well-known phrase ‘survival of the fittest’.
Structure of the Grass Bank
Leonard reveals that the first step of the Plan was the division of the Conservancy into three major grazing zones, that is Zone A, Zone B, and Zone C.
“The Plan is dictated by the two weather conditions experienced in Kenya, wet & dry seasons. The Zones were further subdivided into blocks depending on several factors such as the size, border points, and vegetation cover.”
Leonard tells us that Zone C, which ranges about 10,000 acres, is the community settlement zone.
“During the wet season, which is when the land has enough pasture, we advise our Conservancy members to graze their livestock in this Zone which is near their homes. The grazing period ranges from one to two months.”
He continues to reveal that, during the dry season, some areas in Zone B, which is about 7,000 acres of the Conservancy, are open for grazing.
The Grazing Plan then shifts gear to Zone A which is about 6,000 acres of land and, according to Leonard, the zone of the last resort.
“We set aside Zone A exclusively for tourism and it is considered to be a severe drought grazing zone. Zone A is the heart of our Grazing Plan. It is our Grazing Bank, hence the title ‘The Grass Banks of the Oloisukut Conservancy’.”
Leonard proudly pointed out that during the last drought experienced between October to December 2021, Zone A sustained over 3,000 heads of cattle from outside the Conservancy and an additional 13,000 heads of cattle owned by the conservancy members for a period of three months.
“No livestock was lost during the last drought because of this effective and manageable Grass Bank Plan during the last drought. However, we saw outside herders lose many of their livestock upon arriving in our Zone. Some of their livestock was already emaciated from drought and fatigued from elsewhere. However, those that made it through the journey had enough pasture on our land and regained their strength and health. This Plan is, therefore, a serious grazing bank.”
You might wonder why other cattle are allowed to graze inside the Conservancy yet they don’t belong to our members. The Maasai people have a communal solid bond and it is customary to accommodate other herders in one’s grazing fields during times of adversity.
So, recall Wantai the Pastoralist we met at the beginning? Wantai is one of the success stories of the Grass Banks of the Oloisukut Conservancy, and we are now more than ever motivated to find out how she has benefited from the Plan.
Benefits of the Grass Bank
Nolkireu Wantai, a longstanding member of the Oloisukut Conservancy, owns 80 acres of land inside the Conservancy and has her own boma (homestead) where she is happily raising her six children.
Dressed in her smart Maasai regalia and ornaments, she smiles as she confidently tells us how she depends entirely on the Conservancy to meet the basic needs of her children, including school fees.
“I am a widow who currently owns twenty cows, ten sheep, and five goats. I have been in this area for a long time tending to my livestock and raising my children, but initially, we faced a big challenge of wildlife coming into our land and we did not know how to deal with it.”
As a community that has depended on pastoralism for a long time, the human-wildlife conflict initially posed a threat to their livelihoods, reveals Wantai.
“We had our livestock to take care of but we hated that the wildlife was a part of us. We did not know what to do. When we saw them come close to our homesteads, we would chase them away.”
Wantai says that this led to the members of the community coming together as partners to form the Oloisukut Conservancy, where members get civic education about conservation, including the value of living wildlife and how to live harmoniously with them.
“We learned that the wildlife is ours as much as livestock.”
Wantai confirms that the integration has benefited the members in a big way, among them tourism and employment opportunities for children of the members. For instance, Leonard is the son of one of the Conservancy land owners.
“Now we see the wildlife is of value to us. They have brought riches to us since we get income from the tourists and we use the money to provide a balanced diet for our children, as well as pay school fees for them” Wantai attributes this success story to the Grass Banks.
“Since we learned how to manage our grazing lands through the Plan, we have not had any challenges during drought” he says.
Wantai explains that the wildlife, especially the grazers, move closer to homesteads as they like the short grass where they feel secure because they can spot predators. This integration of humans, livestock, and wildlife surviving and living together works because of the Grazing Plan.
“The wildlife came closer to our homes and we started to live in harmony with them. We now have enough grass for our livestock and for the wildlife, and over time we have seen their mortality rate reduce.”
Wantai says that other benefits of the Plan include the regeneration of the land. She is also one of a group of one hundred and sixty women to whom the WWF-Kenya donated fifty beehives. The group has since harvested and sold 50kgs of honey.
The question then arises of who ensures that the Plan is implemented systematically among the Conservancy members. According to Leonard, the Conservancy Rangers ensure the effective implementation of the Grazing Plan.
Bernard Likama, the Head Ranger and Warden at the Oloisukut Conservancy, says that between 2006 to 2013 before the Conservancy was well defined and structured, the Rangers volunteered to protect the livestock.
Bernard notes that the same challenge of human, livestock, and wildlife conflict persisted until the members developed strategies to address it.
“At night we faced challenges of human-wildlife conflict but we started conducting morning patrols to monitor wildlife, livestock, and people movement. We educated the Conservancy members on how to monitor the movement of the carnivores by marking the areas frequented by lions and elephants.”
Bernard further explains that the Rangers would study and mark the wildlife patterns through two daily patrols conducted from 8 am – 12 pm and from 2 pm – 5 pm.
Bernard also notes that the Conservancy has been helped by the Mara Predator Project through the collaring of one of their resident lions in the pride of sixteen called the ‘Pusin Nkariak Pride’, named after a local stream of blue water. A lioness in the Pusin Nkariak Pride was collared to monitor the movement of the lions.
Challenges
The Conservancy has received support from various stakeholders, among them WWF-Kenya, which initially addressed the human, livestock, and wildlife conflict by providing predator deterrent lights for many homesteads, installed in bomas. An example of this light is the one we see at Wantai’s homestead.
Other benefits include a predator-proof ‘boma’ fence, which is made of hard metal that carnivores cannot break.
WWF-Kenya also meets the salaries of Oloisukut Conservancy Rangers, who are about twenty-eight in number, and the salaries of staff in the Conservancy management, and provides funds for capacity building such as training courses. In addition, WWF-Kenya has provided the Conservancy with two vehicles, a Land Cruiser and a Suzuki for patrols, and two motorcycles.
Aside from the now-famous Grass Banks of the Oloisukut Conservancy Plan, Leonard tells us that the Conservancy, with support from WWF-Kenya, has begun to implement other sustainability projects, one of them being a breeding program.
“WWF-Kenya bought thirty-four steers in 2018 and sixteen pure Boran heifers in 2019 to support the breeding program. The result is we now have twenty calves, ten of them are calving for the second time.” Members bought twenty more steers, bringing the total to fifty-four. Four were lost to disease and predation, but fifty were fattened and sold within eight months to the local market for between Kenya Shillings 20,000-35,000 each, fetching a total of Kenya shillings 1.2 million in revenue.
“We are now going to buy a second batch of steers, about 70 of them to fatten and sell,” said Leonard.
Challenges of the Grass Banks
While the Grass Banks of Oloisukut Conservancy have contributed widely to the integration of humans, livestock, and wildlife, we learn from Leonard that this however has caused some challenges that the Conservancy is yet to come to terms with.
“The integration of wildlife and livestock has led to animal diseases, among them East Coast Fever because of ticks from wildlife like zebra and buffalo, and infestation by tsetse flies leading to trypanosomiasis disease, or sleeping sickness, in cattle which affects the health of the cows.”
Water scarcity is another challenge that is currently being monitored through rehabilitation of one of the Conservancy’s water pans used for community, wildlife, and livestock consumption.
We also learn that there is no compensation scheme for the loss of livestock to wildlife predation. “We don’t have a compensation plan and we rely on other conservancies as a partnership, like the Mara Conservancy. They pay a consolation fee for a cow of Kenya shillings 20,000 and Kenya shillings 7,000 for goat and sheep.”
In the end, the Grass Banks of Oloisukut Conservancy Plan has proven to be effective and beneficial to its members.
“Apart from rhinos, we have the other Big Five wildlife in the Conservancy because of pasture, which has attracted tourism. So far we have one tourist camp that has subscribed to the Conservancy, and we are talking with others.”
Leonard notes that the Conservancy itself has also established a tourist camp, called Mara Nyota Lodge, from which it earns revenue. “Every tourist or visitor to Oloisukut or one of the camps pays forty US dollars as conservation fee, which goes to members and covers a bit of administrative cost.” He confirms that forty percent goes to administration, and the remaining sixty percent is divided equally amongst the Conservancy members.
