Study Site #1 – Amboseli, Kenya

Background

The Loitokitok Maasai community surrounds the Amboseli National Park, indeed when the Park was founded in the late 1960s it included an agreement, struck through the facilitation of Dr. David Western, Co-director of this project, with the community to vacate the region in return for secure access to water resources made available between the Park and the Tanzanian border. Western continues to pursue research and ecological monitoring in the region with a focus on community conservation, in cooperation with the Maasai Rangers program and the Amboseli Land Owners Association. The region is linked with the Tanzanian cross-border site of Enduimet, both lying on the plains below the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa’s highest mountain, and is an important site for ACC’s Transborder Elephant Monitoring program. The area is divided between Group Ranches that have been privatized and sub-divided, and those that remain under common land management.

I-CAN activities

The African Conservation Centre (ACC), SORALO, and the Amboseli Ecosystem Trust (AET) are I-CAN partner organizations that are involved in conservation work in Amboseli.

In July 2017, Dr. Jacques Pollini, Daniel Salau, and team members of the Amboseli Ecosystem Trust (AET) carried out an research scoping study in Olgulului-Ololorashi group ranch that examined barriers to the implementation the 2008-2018 Amboseli Ecosystem Management Plan.