Abstract:
Globally, rangelands are undergoing rapid social-ecological changes, yet the
scale of these changes is rarely measured. Fencing, sedentarization, and land
conversion limit access by wildlife and livestock to vital resources such as water
and seasonal forage, leading to rangeland degradation. In addition, these
changes limit connectivity between wildlife sub-populations, triggering a
spiral of decreasing biodiversity and weakening ecosystem function.
Moreover, the combination of land privatization, sedentarization and fencing
endangers pastoral livelihoods by reducing resilience to drought and
diminishing livestock holdings per person. We provide a unique, urgent, and
vital snapshot across >30,000 km2 of southern Kenya’s rangeland, covering
four ecosystems renowned for their rich megafauna and pastoral people. We
document and explore the drivers of extensive fencing (~40,000 km), the
proliferation of livestock enclosures (>27,000), and the conversion of
rangelands for cultivation (~1,500 km2). Our analyses were based on an
open-access database recently synthesized for the region. Fencing is
generally more prolific in areas that have been converted from community
tenure to private title, especially where land values are raised by agricultural
potential and proximity to Kenya’s capital, Nairobi. These factors drive the transfer of land ownership from traditional pastoralists to speculators,
eventually resulting in the transformation of rangeland into agricultural,
industrial and urban land uses. Space for wildlife (and traditional pastoralism)
is limited on private, subdivided land, where livestock enclosures are at their
highest density, and where there is less unfenced land and less untransformed
land, compared to conservation areas and pastoral commons. Conflicting
planning incentives, policies, and economic forces are driving unsustainable
and potentially irreversible social-ecological transitions over unprecedented
spatial scales. The lesson from southern Kenya is that a range of financial, policy
and governance-related interventions are required to allow people and nature
to coexist sustainably in African savannas.
