Covid-19 pandemic effects and responses in the Maasai Mara conservancy

Abstract

Local comparisons of effects, responses and mitigations to the Covid-19 pandemic are of vital importance in building a sustainable tourism. This is particularly the case for conservancies in Africa which is largely dependent on international tourism. Qualitative interviews were carried out in the Kenya Maasai Mara Wildlife Conservancies Association (MMWCA)with landowners, lodge managers and staff, tourism operators, community organisations and NGOs between January and May 2021. The MMWCA is an important case study as conservancies pay lease payments to more than 14,528 landowners through tourism revenues. The results show how partner conservancies took different paths in securing payments of leases and salaries by rotating staff, attracting international funding and by targeting domestic tourism. Meanwhile, landowners experimented with alternative economic activities such as cattle herding and diary production. The study shows the strength of MMWCA as a stakeholder partnership to proactively design measures including renegotiation of lease-payments, in soliciting external funding and in re-distributing funding. The positive role of domestic tourism is also stressed. The pandemic brought to the forefront discussions on equity and benefit sharing and on the sustainability of the model itself. Recommendations are given to strengthen possibilities for alternative incomes sources and for a diversification of strategies of the MMWCA partners, including the need to stimulate domestic tourism as a parallel source of income. These recommendations are also relevant to conservation areas across the African continent.

Keywords: Covid-19; community conservation; conservation; masai-mara conservancy; nature tourism.

Figure 1.

Location of Kenya and the Greater Mara Conservancy, which encompass the national reserve, a number of conservancies and the conservancies which form the Kenya Maasai Mara Wildlife Conservancies Association (MMWCA) (modified from Maa Trust, 2020 which is one of the NGO partners in the Greater Mara Conservancy).