The last objective in the community programme
focuses on enhancing conservation-compatible land
use and development in the greater ecosystem, with a
particular focus in areas neighbouring the MMNR. Although beyond
the immediate mandate of the MMNR’s managers, addressing
issues in these areas is becoming increasingly important for the
maintenance of both the MMNR tourism product, and for the
conservation of the Reserve itself. Actions are included to
strengthen support for community conservancies and cultural village
associations, as well as to support regulation and management of
trading centres on the MMNR’s boundary.
Much of the Tanzanian part of the Mara-Serengeti
Ecosystem is incorporated into the Serengeti
National
Park, Ngorongoro Conservation Area, and
neighbouring game reserves. In comparison, most of the
Kenyan
part of the ecosystem (around 75 percent) is on
private or communally owned land. Nevertheless, these
areas
are vitally important for a number of MMNR large
mammal species that depend on dispersal areas
beyond
the Reserve’s boundaries, including the
northern wildebeest migration. In this regard, it has long been
recognised
that the survival of many of the MMNR’s and
the wider ecosystem’s exceptional resources up
until
now can be largely attributed to the conservation
compatibility of traditional land-use practices around
the
Reserve, and the traditional tolerance to wildlife
by Maasai communities living in the greater
Mara.
This favourable situation for the dispersal areas
is, however, now changing rapidly. Human
populations
around the MMNR have increased dramatically since
the Reserve’s establishment - from around 0.8
people/
km2 in 1950 to 14.7
people/km2 in
200235. This escalation is a result of both local
population increases as
well as in-migration, often from elsewhere in
Narok and Trans Mara Districts. Much of the in-migration
to
areas around the MMNR is in pursuit of economic
opportunities (often associated with tourism
facilities
established around border of the Reserve), which
aredifficult to find elsewhere in the greater Mara
area.
These changes in human densities in the Mara
Ecosystem have been accompanied by similarly
dramatic
changes in land use practices and the development
aspirations of the ecosystem’s residents. As part of
this
process, the existing group ranch communal land
ownership system is in the course of being dismantled
in
favour of sub-division to form individually owned
plots. In some cases this sub-division has had severe
impacts
on wildlife populations in and around the MMNR, as
is the case with intensive agriculture in the
northern parts of the ecosystem, and above the
Siria Escarpment where a “hard edge” is
developing along the
MMNR’s border. In other cases, however, this
security of tenure has enabled groups of individual
landowners
to form wildlife conservancies or associations,
which are able to avoid many of the problems of
revenue
sharing that have plagued group ranches in the
past, and that have the potential to play both a vital role
in
the conservation of the ecosystem’s
exceptional resources and in providing a valuable source of income
for
those living around the MMNR.
As human populations, livelihood aspirations, land
sub-division and other development pressures
continue
to increase throughout the ecosystem over the
implementation period of this plan, it is crucial that
MMNR
management provide support to and promote
sustainable land use and development activities in the
Greater
Mara Ecosystem that are at a minimum compatible
with, and where possible enhance, the conservation
and
tourism product of the MMNR. In order to achieve
this objective five management actions have been
developed,
detailed below.
