AIM OF THE CONSERVANCY
Conserving the biological resources and the socio-cultural heritage of the conservancy area through a community conservation approach and responsible tourism.
The conservancy model promotes the coming together of several groups of stakeholders in order to rejuvenate a vital section of wildlife corridor for the Masai Mara/Serengeti ecosystem.
Comprised of over 53,000 acres northeast of the Masai Mara National Reserve, Mara Naboisho Conservancy provides an exclusive safari experience. The land includes contributions from over 500 Masai landowners and conservancy fees are directed back to these landowners, providing them with a sustainable livelihood.
The Mara Naboisho Conservancy also limits the number of tourists who may enter the area, thereby reducing the crowds of vehicles. Guests often find themselves the only vehicle around, giving spectacular, unspoiled views of exciting wildlife.
Initial research indicates that Mara Naboisho Conservancy has one of the highest densities of lions in Africa. One of the major prides, comprised of 22 lions, makes its home nearby Encounter Mara. The conservancy also has impressive numbers of elephant, giraffe, and other plains animals, in addition to hosting some of the rarest animals in Kenya, such as Wild Dog.
BIG CAT PROJECT
Coming together for a worthy course.
The Mara Naboisho Big Cat Project brings together community, researchers, NGOs and Tourism Partners in Naboisho Conservancy in an effort to help secure the future of the Big Cats namely Lion, Cheetah and Leopard. Currently the project has four major components: tracking, research, conflict mitigation and community education.
The project is implemented through the following partnerships:
- The Africa Impact volunteer monitoring project in partnership with Koiyaki Guiding School and Basecamp Foundation;
- The Mara Predator Conservation Programme, run by Kenya Wildlife Trust, which focuses on the scientific monitoring of lions and cheetahs in the Mara .;
MARA ELEPHANT PROJECT
The Mara Elephant Project (MEP) brings together researchers and conservationists in an effort to help secure the future of African elephants.
A mixture of land-use changes resulting from human population growth, deforestation and poaching for elephants’ highly valuable ivory is causing populations to dwindle. Humans are encroaching upon historic elephant rangelands, and human-elephant conflict is on the rise. That, paired with the demand for ivory, means the illegal killing of elephants is at its highest level since the international ivory trade ban. The Mara Elephant Project saves and protects the African elephant population in the Mara by combatting poaching operations, collaring, monitoring and researching elephants, and protecting farmers and elephants across their large dispersal area.
Partners include Wildlife Conservation Network, Save the Elephants; the Kenya Wildlife Service; the Globe Foundation and the Mara Conservancy.
ElephantVoices
In 2011 ElephantVoices launched “Elephant Partners”, an elephant conservation project in the Maasai Mara ecosystem. The goal of Elephant Partners is to develop and maintain a working model for citizens to monitor and protect elephants. The concept is to connect individual people – guides, scouts, researchers, visitors and people of the Mara – with the lives of individual elephants. Through the use of online databases, social media and a smartphone app for data collection, the project is maintaining a community of people who are gathering data about the Mara elephants and working together to protect them.
Read more about this initiative on http://www.elephantvoices.org and http://www.fb.com/elephantvoices
MARA PREDATOR CONSERVATION PROGRAMME
One of the major issues outside the Maasai Mara National Reserve is the increasing pressure from the Maasai on wildlife and natural resources.
In early 2018, two flagship existing KWT predator conservation projects (focusing on lion and cheetah) were joined into one long-term conservation commitment – the Mara Predator Conservation Programme (MPCP). The project’s vision is to be a world–class conservation programme, providing evidence–based, practical management recommendations, solutions and ideas. MPCP has three overarching goals: 1) to help community members and landowners understand and appreciate the role of predators in the ecosystem; 2) to ensure that key stakeholders in the Greater Mara Ecosystem consistently utilise sound scientific information to inform conservation strategies; and 3) to support stable, healthy predator populations in the Greater Mara Ecosystem by providing scientific evidence for conservation action.