We developed a "continual engagement" model to better integrate knowledge from policy makers, communities, and researchers with the goal of promoting more effective action to balance poverty alleviation and wildlife conservation in 4 pastoral ecosystems of East Africa. The model involved the creation of a core boundary-spanning team, including community facilitators, a policy facilitator, and transdisciplinary researchers, responsible for linking with a wide range of actors from local to global scales. Collaborative researcher−facilitator community teams integrated local and scientific knowledge to help communities and policy makers improve herd quality and health, expand biodiversity payment schemes, develop land-use plans, and fully engage together in pastoral and wildlife policy development. This model focused on the creation of hybrid scientific−local knowledge highly relevant to community and policy maker needs. The facilitation team learned to be more effective by focusing on noncontroversial livelihood issues before addressing more difficult wildlife issues, using strategic and periodic engagement with most partners instead of continual engagement, and reducing costs by providing new scientific information only when deemed essential. We conclude by examining the role of facilitation in redressing asymmetries in power in researcher−community−policy maker teams, the role of individual values and character in establishing trust, and how to sustain knowledge-action links when project funding ends.A lthough pastoralists and rangelands have been the subject of research study for decades around the globe, it is only recently that pastoral communities and policy makers have been part of the research process rather than the subjects of study alone or excluded altogether (1). In Africa, the current structure of academic incentives and poor research funding makes it difficult for local researchers to work closely with pastoral communities over the long term, particularly if those researchers live in cities far from pastoral lands. Researchers from outside the region rarely have the opportunity to engage at the depth and over the time required to ensure research is useful to local actors. Agricultural extension in African pastoral lands is difficult not only because of the mobility of some pastoral populations (2) but also because many extension specialists do not recognize the highly adaptive nature of indigenous pastoral management (3). Pastoral households and communities are often the subjects of postgraduate theses or larger research projects in which students and researchers collect information from households and rangelands but rarely have the funds to interpret and return this information to the communities that provided it (e.g., ref. 4). It is even rarer to find research that, from the outset, integrates communities or policy makers in collaborative efforts for the purpose of creating ''research-action arenas'' (5), wherein different groups are integrated to support local action in an action research framewo...

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There is consensus that pastoral mobility is beneficial for both pastoralists and the environment. However, rapid change arising from multiple factors, including landscape fragmentation, sedentarization, and demographic drivers might affect the effectiveness of this pastoral coping strategy in times of drought. We investigate livestock mortality rates following the 2005 drought in four areas in Maasailand: the Maasai Mara, the Kitengela plains, the Amboseli, and the Simanjiro plains. The main aim was to assess the mortality of resident livestock in relation to incoming livestock during the drought. Contrary to our expectations, livestock mortality rates were significantly higher (43%) in Kitengela, which experienced above-average rainfall, compared to the other three areas which had below-average rainfall yet experienced mortality rates between 14% and 30%. Two processes might explain this surprisingly high mortality rate. Firstly, the immigration of large numbers of livestock from drought-stricken areas into the highly fragmented Kitengela area increased stocking density, which worsened the shortage of forage and water. Secondly, the more market-oriented but less drought-resistant livestock breeds in Kitengela form another explanation for the increased mortality. These observations suggest that pastoral mobility may lead to greater sensitivity to drought especially in fragmented areas where more market-oriented but less drought-resistant livestock breeds are introduced. We argue that in such areas, there is a crucial need to adopt practices that simultaneously minimize land fragmentation and enhance pastoral mobility and access to information on improved livestock breeds and markets.

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Pastoral systems are rapidly changing in Africa and elsewhere, yet relatively little is known regarding what, and how well, households in these systems are now doing. This article addresses livelihood choices and income diversification strategies in a traditionally Maasai pastoral area of southern Kenya, and the factors influencing the returns to their diverse livelihood strategies. We explore how well household-level versus geographic factors explain the large variability in income and livestock wealth levels and the implications for wildlife conservation and poverty reduction strategies.

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We develop an adaptive and flexible framework for engaging experts and stakeholders at the household-and community-level that have different livelihoods and land use interests within Kenya's Athi-Kaputiei Plains (AKP). We use Bayesian Belief Networks linked to GIS data layers to integrate empirical data and elicited stakeholder knowledge. The process is designed to address problems with past conservation-development strategies by allowing participants to build relationships among people with different land use interests in order to clarify opportunities and constraints, examine assumptions at the design phase of a project, and determine future actions and potential development scenarios. We use an example of four different livelihood groups in the AKP to demonstrate how the process might work to identify suitable areas for alternative land uses (e.g., wildebeest and livestock grazing, crop cultivation, and urban development), and to identify future compatibilities and conflicts between these different land use interests. The modeling process provides a maximal coverage strategy that allows decision makers to target and prioritize areas for protection or development, and to set specific strategies in the face of changing ecological, social, or economic processes. The process is iterative so that revised models can be developed as new data and knowledge arise, thereby Ecosystems and Sustainable Development VIII 43