Living in harmony with nature: Samburu's conservation success story

Westgate Conservancy in Samburu County. (Courtesy)

We’re seated around a crackling log fire in the dry sandy bed of a seasonal river in Samburu. It is just getting dark and dusk quickly grows around us. Here dusk falls quickly, engulfing everything in a warm, windy embrace.

It is rarely ever completely dark, however. More than 50km away from the nearest streetlight, stars are the kings of the night sky, a stargazer’s heaven.

Here is Westgate Conservancy in Samburu County, its 14,000 hectares framed by Matthews Range in the far background and Samburu National Conservancy on the other end. It lies along Ewaso Ng’iro River and to the west of the national reserve, through the park’s West Gate.

Not far from where our group of about ten is, the smell of goat meat roasting wafts through the air. This is our dinner. Nothing beats a rack of ribs off a goat reared free range in the shrubs of Samburu.

The occasional hyena, and even a jackal, pops out of the bushes to examine this odd nighttime gathering. They’re quickly spotted by rangers in the group and sent off with a firm torch beam.

We had spent the day among the community of Westgate Conservancy, experiencing first-hand how a community dealt with one of the country’s harshest terrains harnessed their environment to work for them.

Unlike many community conservancies, however, Westgate has the particular advantage of bordering a national reserve.

In its heydays, Samburu National Reserve could have easily taken on the big parks in the country with its abundance of wildlife and a generous helping of elephants and lions, it still can. It is good to see that the conservation area is regaining its glory.

The neighbourhood they find themselves in means the residents here are not strangers to conservation and tourism.

Even before they went the community conservancy way, they were already involved in conservation in one way or another.

Elephants along Ewaso Ng'iro river in Samburu. (Courtesy)

Twin celebration

Westgate Community Conservancy was started 20 years ago in 2004. As it celebrates this milestone, it does so at the same time as an organization that is key to its story, the Northern Rangelands Trust (NRT), of which they are a member.

NRT was also formed 20 years ago to support a “growing number of communities interested in conservation.”

Today they have a membership of 45 community conservancies stretching all the way to the coast.

It is from this partnership that Westgate has built formidable community resilience projects and initiatives.

“It is 20 years of success,” says Westgate Community Conservancy Manager Francis Lalampaa.

He says there were no proper structures when the conservancy was started and whatever revenue came into the community from tourism was little and had no usage or sharing formula. Today, 60 per cent of revenue goes to the community.

This was initially communal land with no “designated plans for conservation or restricted areas for grazing,” he says. “We had the resources, but there were no plans.” It was an open plan system for everyone to use as they wished.

 “It was not easy to start,” says Lalampaa, with some residents uneasy that this was a land grab plan and others worried that their livestock would be pushed out in favour of wildlife.

Today, the community proudly owns the activities and plans of their conservancy. Benefits like; school bursaries, employment opportunities, better health facilities and water projects won over even the skeptics.

During the day, we met Ngeeti Lempate, a resident of Remut village at a borehole built with proceeds from NRT-run carbon trading project, the world’s biggest soil carbon removal project.

Ngeeti is also one of the women involved in a project intended to reclaim bare rangelands by reseeding them with grass. It helps with drought resilience and gives the 20 women and five men involved a source of money as they sell harvested grass seeds to NRT that gives the same back to be used in a different area.

Alex Lekalaile, the conservancy’s rangelands coordinator says the project was started by community women to try and rehabilitate their land.

“The grass planted here is drought resistant and can last long once it takes root,” he says.

In another village, Ngutuk Ongiron, Ngisesia Leletur and a group of women are busy with beadwork. “Tumeshona shanga, tukafungua Sacco,” she says.

Westgate has eight villages.

The community here also practices cattle bunching to regulate land use. Here all the community’s cattle are brought together and cared for together in a structured approach led by the conservancy management, with armed night guards and herdsmen employed by the conservancy.

This also frees up cattle owners from the responsibility of having to personally look after their cows.

Cows are grazed by block in a structured land use approach, ensuring that there is always grass in reserve for the dry seasons.

He says putting all their cattle together is no easy feat, with upwards of 2,000 to 3,000 head of cows in one block.

This also helps address cattle rustling, no cattle raided from neighbouring communities can be brought into the herd.

“Our community has become ambassadors of conservation,” says Lalampaa.

He says they have eliminated poaching and illegal firearms. Now, says Lalampaa, wildlife that had disappeared is coming back.

He says they can sight more than 2,000 elephants and a month. Other increasing animals include giraffes and Grevy’s Zebra.

The conservancy warden Stephen Lenantoiye agrees. He is in charge of wildlife and security. “When we started giraffes had disappeared, people used to eat them,” he says.

He says other animals like gerenuks are also increasing.

Lenantoiye says they started with 10 rangers but now have more than 50 staff.

“How can the community and wildlife coexist? People and wildlife, livestock and wildlife?” says Lalampaa of their guiding objective.

He says the conservancy supports community activities for livestock, making sure they are healthy and have access to water and pasture.

Now, he says, the community does not look at wildlife as belonging to the Kenya Wildlife Service.

Every village has a number employed directly by the conservancy and others by partners like Sasaab Lodge, a luxury hotel within the conservancy on land leased from the community. Built in 2006, it is the only lodge in the conservancy.

Lalampaa says 75 per cent of employees come from the community, in addition to the revenue that it makes for the community. He says the lodge sponsored at least 40 students in secondary schools and colleges last year.

“Residents have groups that come together to entertain visitors,” says Lalampaa, and they are paid for it. These and other revenue generating activities mean that there is money circulating in the local community, he says.

Away from wildlife, this region’s biggest selling point are the stunning views it offers.

Westgate Conservancy’s sundowner place of choice is a viewpoint overlooking the plains. Standing here, far below you is the Ewaso Ng’iro in the background meandering through the Samburu wilderness on its way to Archers Post downriver, and under the Isiolo-Moyale Road as it snakes a path to Lorian Swamp where it ends its journey.

It is the perfect place to sit and listen to the quiet of nature.

Not far from here, along the banks of Ewaso Ng’iro and inside the Samburu National Reserve is a place aptly named elephant bedroom, so called because of the sheer number of the big animals drawn to its rich, calm environment.

On our way out, we stop at elephant bedroom just in time to witness a family of jumbos playing and feeding without paying attention to the humans clicking away.

The beauty of Samburu.