Over the last 17 years, a small group of ecotourism companies in Kenya have been paying local Maasai residents in the Maasai Mara region to keep their land unfenced and wild to maintain the unique biodiversity of the region.
These funds have already saved — among other things — pastoral livelihoods and the local elephant population. The effort as a whole also increased the amount of protected land in the country from 8% to 12%.
“This has really led to a big shift in terms of people really starting to see the value of putting their land aside for wildlife,” said Mohanjeet Brar, managing director of an ecotourism company called Gamewatchers.
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About the author
Jesse Chase-Lubitz
Jesse Chase-Lubitz covers climate change and multilateral development banks for Devex. She previously worked at Nature Magazine, where she received a Pulitzer grant for an investigation into land reclamation. She has written for outlets such as Al Jazeera, Bloomberg, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, and The Japan Times, among others. Jesse holds a master’s degree in Environmental Policy and Regulation from the London School of Economics.
