The MMNR lies at the heart of one of the
world’s best-known and most spectacular natural
ecosystems.
However, the Reserve itself only covers a small
part of the ecosystem, and land uses and activities in
other
parts of the ecosystem can have a huge impact on
the ecology and biodiversity of the Reserve as well as
other
aspects of the area’s management, such as
the quality and type of tourism product the MMNR is able to
offer.
Although the MMNR is fortunate to be bordered by a
number of areas that are currently under
management
regimes that are highly compatible with the
Reserve’s conservation (such as the Serengeti
National
Park to the south, and a number of community
conservancies on the Kenyan side of the ecosystem),
large
areas remain where changing land use and
management practises are increasingly impacting on the
MMNR,
and in some cases on the Mara-Serengeti Ecosystem
as a whole. Coordinated management of the ecosystem
is
therefore essential to not only capitalise on the
synergistic benefits that can be derived from areas under
mutually
compatible management regimes, but also to help
address common threats impacting on these
areas,
or the ecosystem as a whole. As a keystone area in
the ecosystem, and the largest single landholding on
the
Kenyan part of the ecosystem, an important guiding
principle of this programme is to help ensure that
coordination
and communication between managers from different
areas within the Mara-Serengeti Ecosystem is
both supported and promoted wherever
possible.
