Despite growing policy interest in the conservation values of territories and areas conserved by Indigenous peoples and local communities (abbreviated to 'ICCAs') at the global level, our understanding of the ICCAs in East Africa is meagre at best. We explore the existence of ICCAs in East Africa, focusing on the case of the Daasanach pastoralists of Ileret, Kenya. We examine their existence through ethnographic approaches, including participant observation, semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions. We explore whether these particular ICCAs fit the criteria to be recognised as 'other effective area-based conservation measures' (OECMs), with specific attention to their customary management systems. Our work evidences the existence of pastoral ICCAs amongst the Daasanach, challenging the widespread assumption in the scientific literature that traditional pastoral commons are insignificant in today's East African context. Such ICCAs have played a central role not only for local livelihoods, but also for the maintenance of biodiversity and ecosystem services, aligning with the current definition of OECMs. Yet concerns about the rapidly changing socio-ecological system may defy such categorisation. In closing, we offer some remarks on the management criteria for OECMs and propose improved guidelines for measuring the effectiveness of OECMs.
Rural commons inEast-Africa have historically played key socio-economic and environmental sustainability. Despite growing interest in this arena, there are still surprisingly few studies that examine rural customary management of pastoral communities in East Africa. This is striking given that this region is an exemplary area for pastoralism and thus ideal for communal systems such as commons. Deficient studies and political support in this area could be linked to widespread prejudice of branding pastoralism as perilous to the environment. We set out to conduct a study to examine and test pastoralists' customary norms that underpin environmental sustainability/ unsustainabity of pastoral commons focusing on Mwanda-Marungu, in Taita hills, Kenya where the first author originates and brought up as a pastoralist up to the age of 24. Through ethnographic approaches and semi-open interviews to 193 respondents conducted in 2019-2021 during water and pasture stress during the dry months of July-October, we examined whether customary governance of Mwanda-Marungu would offer sustainable model that conforms to the IUCN's Other Effective Area-Based Conservation Measures (OECMs). Our study showed that pastoral communities in this area have been developing inventive measures for generations that improve good management and ecological protection. These may be tied to the principles of OECMs which contests the misconception about pastoralism.
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