The last 30 years have seen significant declines in wildlife across Kenya. Habitat loss, poaching, and conflict with humans over shared resources are primary factors.

Historically, local communities have had little say in how conservation areas in Kenya are managed, and seen little tangible benefit from wildlife protection. As a result, attitudes towards wildlife from the very people that lived alongside it were apathetic. The community conservation movement is changing this, by bridging the gap between conservation and improved indigenous livelihoods.  

NRT member conservancies are protecting wildlife in six main ways:

1. Anti-poaching operations

2. Habitat management

3. Increasing conservation awareness

4. Human-wildlife conflict mitigation

5. Wildlife population monitoring

6. Endangered species recovery programmes

The NRT wildlife team have been collecting data on 11 key wildlife species in 17 conservancies since 2013. These are elephant, eland, oryx, giraffe, gerenuk, lion, cheetah, wild dog, Grevy's zebra, plains zebra and buffalo. Latest data shows that sightings of elephant and Grevy’s zebra significantly increased across the community conservancies in 2019.

NRT Status of Wildlife Report 2005-2019 | Download Now

Collating 15 years of data from NRT member conservancies, this is the first comprehensive report on the impact of NRT member community conservancies on wildlife since NRT was established in 2004.

Endangered species

Alongside Namunyak, three other conservancies are managing endangered species sanctuaries with the support of NRT and partners. Like Reteti, these conservancies are among just a handful of their kind in Africa, and are blazing a new trail for community-led endangered species conservation. 

In 2012, the community of Ishaqbini, in Garissa County, approached NRT for support in establishing a protected sanctuary for the hirola in their conservancy - the first community initiative of its kind in Kenya. Thanks to their efforts, and support from partners, hirola numbers in the sanctuary are booming. The total hirola population at the Sanctuary is estimated to be 140 - a 180% increase in the numbers of the critically endangered hirola numbers since its establishment in 2012. This represents 25% of the known global population of the species.

The Ishaqbini management have also made efforts to clear the damaging and prolific Acacia reficiens in the sanctuary to promote grass recovery and initiated a tick control programme using livestock, to minimise the risk of tick-borne disease in hirola. 

The fate of hirola outside the sanctuary, however, remains dire and numbers in the free-ranging population continue to decline. 

Click here to see the latest shots from the sanctuary webcams!

A survey in 2016 found that nearly 40% of Africa's giraffe population had been wiped out in one generation. With fewer than 97,562 of all nine subspecies left, they are now listed 'vulnerable' by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Moving giraffe to Ruko Conservancy in 2012 was the start of a longterm plan to repopulate the Baringo area with Rothchild’s giraffe (also known as ‘Baringo giraffe’) - with indigenous communities leading the way.

Ruko is currently home to 14 giraffe (12 females and 2 male). Over the past few years, the giraffe’s peninsula home has turned to a shrinking island, as water levels in Lake Baringo have been rising. The conservancy initially had to invest in supplementary food as there was not enough browse on the island — as well as being unsustainable and expensive, the conditions were also affecting the health and breeding potential of the animals. At the end of 2020, an ambitious rescue effort between Ruko Community Conservancy, the Kenya Wildlife Service, NRT and partners began, to move the giraffes to a new purpose-built sanctuary on the mainland. By the end of 2021, all the nine giraffes had been successfully moved, in an operation that gained international media attention.

Not only did the establishment of Sera Rhino Sanctuary help to reduce capacity pressures in those areas (a growing problem for rhino sanctuaries in Kenya) but it also represented a shift in Kenya's endangered species conservation model - empowering indigenous communities to take the lead. With rhino horn worth more than gold on the black market, the poaching threat remains high for rhino sanctuaries across Africa. But there have been zero incidents of poaching in Sera since its inception, a testament to dedicated scouts and strong community support. Tourism income to Sera is booming too, thanks to Saruni Rhino - a lodge that offers guests the unique opportunity to track black rhinos on foot.

Eleven calves have been born in the Sanctuary since 2016, and the population now stands at 21.

One young rhino, ‘Loijipu’, captured hearts when he was abandoned by his mother in 2017 at a very young age. Thanks to the close monitoring of Sera scouts, he was rescued quickly, and taken to Reteti where he was hand-reared for two years. In June 2018, he returned to Sera to be a wild rhino once again (read more on that story here).

The Sera rhinos are monitored on a daily basis, and their location, body condition and behaviour is recorded into monthly reports that are shared with NRT and the Kenya Wildlife Service. Motion-sensor cameras have also been set up at each water hole in the Sanctuary, which provide images of rhino and other wildlife to support monitoring efforts.

To boost biodiversity in the area, over 70 impala have been moved from Lewa Wildlife Conservancy into the Rhino Sanctuary, as well as several Grevy’s zebra.

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