Community
The two Maasai and two Samburu communities who contributed land to the Ol Lentille conservancy had been grazing their livestock here from time immemorial. Numbering about 10,000 people in total, those communities pursue a semi-nomadic lifestyle, supplanted by small-scale trading, bee keeping and occasional casual jobs. Each community is organized under a “community land-based organization” (a legal structure recognized by the Kenyan government), led by a management board elected every three years. That board (of typically 15 elected officials) represents the broader community and is the Ol Lentille Foundation’s main interlocutor.
A Partnership For Conservation
As an unfenced conservancy, Ol Lentille depends on the collaboration of the surrounding communities to support conservation by keeping their livestock off the land. To offset their opportunity cost of forfeiting prime grazing land, the Ol Lentille safari lodge creates a number of benefits for them, both financial and non-financial.
The tourism operation pays the Maasai community who owns the safari lodge, Kijabe, a quarterly rent. It also pays all four communities (including Kijabe) a “bed night fee” derived from the daily conservation fee paid by guests who stay at the lodge. These payments go directly to the management boards of each community and are used in support of their own self-determined development priorities.
In addition, the tourism operation employs about 30 permanent safari lodge employees, and the Foundation about 25 wildlife rangers from the four communities. The Ol Lentille Foundation complements that cash transfer by funding various local development initiatives which create a further incentive for the communities to support conservation.