No more new buildings in congested Maasai Mara

By Kipchumba Kemei and Lucianne Limo

Conservationists are celebrating the recent Government decision to freeze development of tourist facilities in Masai Mara game reserve until a long-term management plan for the entire ecosystem is formulated.

Stakeholders in tourism industry say the current congestion bodes ill for the survival of the world famous resort.

Over the last 15 years, there has been haphazard development of lodges and camps, settlements, mushrooming of trading centres outside its gates, farming and other forms of encroachment on the famed reserve that have congested the ecosystem.

A tourist samples curios on sale at the gate of a lodge at the Mara

The forest cover has been depleted through wanton logging, grazing of animals, charcoal burning and illegal land allocations, affecting the Mara-Serengeti ecosystem.

• .

  Keep Reading

• 
  Mystery surrounds death of legendary lions in Maasai Mara
• 
  Female Maasai rangers break from cultural norms to protect Amboseli
• 
  Listen to youth, Raila told after Kisii booing
• 
  SPECIAL REPORT: How greed and graft combine to tear down Amboseli

The destruction of the biggest catchment in East Africa has led to severe water shortage is being experienced downstream with serious consequences to human, livestock and wildlife.

Game viewing

The Government report states that the Narok and Trans Mara county councils lack management plan for the reserve and recommends that a strategic framework of over five to ten years be formulated.

Tourism industry stakeholders have observed that though belated, there was urgent need to formulate a management pan for the reserve that will be reviewed after every ten years.

"There is need top enforce area management plan, good corporate governance and benefit sharing to ensure all communities benefit from the resource," says the Kenya Wildlife Service director Julius Kipng’etich.

"Apart from the ecological concern, the reserve should offer premium game viewing to all visitors with the local communities benefiting equitably," says Dr Kipng’etich.

Narok county council vice chairman Solomon Moriaso observes that the civic body is in the process of tackling all the problems bedevilling Masai Mara, adding that the civic body was liaising with all the bodies concerned in the tourism sector to formulate a master plan for the entire ecosystem.

The Minister for Culture and National Heritage William ole Ntimama warns that if the Kenya Government does nothing to curb the degradation of the larger Mara-Serengeti ecosystem that started with flawed environmental policies, the country’s diplomatic relations with Tanzania and all the countries along the river Nile basin will be strained.