Contributions of Partnerships to Conservation and Development: Insights from Amboseli

Abstract

For several decades, both academics and practitioners have fiercely debated how to reconcileconservation and development objectives. In Sub-Saharan Africa, efforts to align biodiversityconservation and livelihood goals have triggered a shift from pure protected area approaches toa hybrid scenario, including diverse partnership arrangements, that consider livelihood needsof communities neighboring protected areas. These partnerships often include tourism toprovide income and jobs. The future of the Amboseli landscape in Kenya has been an integralpart of these debates, since it has faced long-lasting conservation and development challenges.Many initiatives, often in the form of partnership arrangements, have tried to address thesechallenges. By using the Sustainable Livelihood Framework (SLF) and a set of indicators tomeasure the contributions to conservation, we examine two of these partnerships - the AmboseliEcosystem Trust (AET) and Big Life Foundation (BLF)- with the aim of understanding theextent to which they contribute to addressing these challenges. Data were collected usingdocument analysis, in-depth interviews, focus group discussions, non-participant observation,and informal conversations. Findings show that both AET and BLF have been able to addressdirect drivers of biodiversity loss (such as human wildlife conflicts, poaching, unplannedinfrastructural developments) and - to a much lesser extent - the indirect drivers, such as povertyand land subdivision. Through the workings of both partnerships, more community membershave gained access to specific community capital assets, through employment opportunities andother monetary incentives and education. However, it is not clear if and how the livelihoodbenefits transfer to real and long-term support for wildlife conservation.

Governing landscapes through partnerships : Lessons from Amboseli, Kenya

“…3). A central question is, then, whether, how, and the extent to which landscape governance through partnerships can evolve further to contribute to the transformative change needed to achieve the SDGs (Visseren-Hamakers, 2020; see also Mugo et al, 2021). Most probably, they will always need to be seen as part of 'smart policy mixes' (IPBES, 2019), in which different governance instruments together can address the indirect drivers underlying sustainability issues.…”

“…To mitigate these challenges, various policy interventions have been implemented over time (Western, 2007). The Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), for instance, shares benefits last decade, which makes them interesting cases for this study (see also Mugo, Visseren-Hamakers & Van der Duim, 2021).…”