Rangeland Rehabilitation & Management Programme
Project Facts
ILRI, CGIAR, Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory, Colorado State University
Contact persons for the lecture:
- Jason Sircely
- Richard Conant
- Mohammed Said
- Lance Robinson
- Richard Hatfield
Case overview/description
Poor rangeland conditions plant mortality due to livestock grazing soil erosion due to bare vegetation coverage
- Reduce bare ground
- Increase vegetative cover to reduce conflict & competition
- Improve land productivity
Il Ngwesi group ranch: 200 km2, 550 resident Maasai families (~3000 total population)
Group ranches in Kenya; Maasai pastoralists have long faced restrictions on movements
Laikipia District:
- Wildlife, pastoralism
Il Ngwesi group ranch:
- Pastoralism; 7,000 ha dry season reserve
Elders & community leaders, herders & community members
- technical demonstrations
- future 'visioning' (capacity building in future herding managment)
- quantitative: standard rangeland surveys
- qualitative: semi-structured interviews
Outcome/ Beneficiaries/ Issues
- management decision-making
- Herder ‘buy-in/ownership’ enhanced implementation of planned grazing, rangeland health improvement, reduction of livestock mortality
- Stimulated group ranch members’ interest in long-term planning
- devolution of management decisions to ‘Village Forums’
- Improved community engagement and herder contributions to long-term management plans, leading to greater inclusion of and ownership among herders
- improved rangland quality
- implementation of planned grazing
- Rangeland health, especially bare ground cover and vegetative cover
- Exchange of knowledge among pastoralist communities
- Facilitates pastoralist/rancher/farmer interactions
- Learning materials
- Formation of pilot groups for action research
Planned grazing decisions by elders & community leaders led to conflict with herders & community members during the project operations
Technical demonstrations confirmed the ability of planned grazing to improve carbon sequestration Direct examples of how planned grazing can improve rangeland health enhanced communities’ interest in long-term planning Hierarchical, top-down, decision-making alienated herders Generating buy-in among herders enhanced the ability of planned grazing to improve rangeland health, and thereby improve livestock health and reduce livestock mortality Technical knowledge was insufficient for scalable gains in rangeland health, and therefore also carbon storage Addressing management planning processes may be the best chance at catalysing sustained, scalable land management change
- Natural Resource Management
- Pastoral Risk Managment
- Overall project managment and institutional strengthening
- technological change