admin | December 8, 2025
News Brief
In southern Kenya, wildlife is returning to lands once degraded by fencing and land sales. The Nashulai Maasai Conservancy, founded in 2016 beside the Maasai Mara, is fully owned and managed by 64 Maasai landowners who lease their parcels to keep the landscape open for both livestock and wildlife. Co-founder Nelson Ole Reiyia says grass cover has rebounded, rivers have been restored, and giraffes, zebras, and wildebeests now roam freely again. By managing land collectively, Nashulai aims to protect Maasai grazing cycles, prevent land-grabbing, and strengthen local livelihoods.
Standing on open grassland in southern Kenya, Nelson Ole Reiyia lifts his phone to show what he sees each day. He says, “Look, giraffes are walking in front of me. We have hundreds of them in our conservancy. There are zebras, too, see! And elephants.”
Ole Reiyia is the co-founder of the Nashulai Maasai Conservancy, created in 2016 next to the Maasai Mara National Reserve in Narok County. Unlike many protected areas managed by governments or NGOs, Nashulai is fully owned and run by Maasai landowners who united to protect wildlife and secure their grazing lands.
The conservancy spans more than 2,400 hectares. Each parcel is privately owned, but 64 landowners have agreed to lease their plots to the conservancy for 10 years at a time. During this period, they receive payment and commit not to sell their land to outsiders or build fences. This keeps the land open for both livestock and wildlife.
Ole Reiyia says the impact has been visible. He explains, “Nashulai was a big dust bowl. There was no grass on the land. After two years, the grass cover improved. Our women restored the river. They removed tons of garbage, and then, together with the youth, replanted indigenous seedlings along the riverbanks. Over time, nature responded. Wildlife came back.”
These open spaces link the surrounding conservancies with the Maasai Mara. For Ole Reiyia, seeing giraffes, zebras, and wildebeests return feels like a return to his childhood, when wildlife moved freely alongside livestock.
But over the years, those open landscapes became fragmented. Outsiders bought land, fenced it, and blocked traditional movement routes. Ole Reiyia says he witnessed animals strangled in electric fences. He explains that these fences also harmed the Maasai, who depend on open grazing cycles to move cattle and sheep throughout the year.
Joyce Mbataru, communications manager at the Kenyan Wildlife Conservancies Association (KWCA), says this is why collective management matters. She explains, “If you come together as different landowners, then you will be able to continue grazing openly, allowing wildlife to move closely together. So, it benefits both the wildlife and the livestock.”
She adds that conservancies help shield landowners from outside pressure. She says, “Building a conservancy creates a bigger grazing space, preventing further encroachment and ensuring that international or national entities won’t try to buy up their land.”
The challenges around land ownership have deep historical roots. After independence, Kenya established group ranches meant to protect Maasai land. But because ranch committees held most of the decision-making power, some leaders allocated large areas to themselves. Many families chose private ownership instead, hoping it would protect their rights.
Once land was fully privatized, however, tourism investors and developers arrived with tempting offers. Ole Reiyia says many Maasai, facing chronic poverty and food insecurity, accepted these offers quickly. He says, “Poor people were taken advantage of by richer people who wanted to buy land very cheaply … regardless of the fact that this land is actually critical for the preservation of the biodiversity that exists in Masai Mara and Serengeti.”
He views this as a form of land-grabbing. He says, “The Mara Serengeti is a multibillion-dollar industry. Yet the local people continue to live in poverty.”
Nashulai was created as an alternative. It keeps land in private ownership but manages it collectively through leasing. Ole Reiyia says this aligns with Maasai culture. “The Maasai community is a social tribe; they can’t live in isolation from each other and from nature.”
Research has shown mixed outcomes from land privatization across the region. Some areas saw increased fencing and weakened collective action, while others maintained open grazing through hybrid tenure systems. Nashulai aims to follow the latter path.
Still, Mbataru notes that long-term success depends on trust and participation. She says, “The challenge with that is to have a benefit-sharing structure that works for everyone … and ensuring that everybody has been included in the decision-making process. Just like in other conservancies, governance is usually a challenge.”
According to the conservancy, Nashulai now hosts hundreds of zebras, wildebeests, warthogs, and the largest Masai giraffe population in eastern Mara. Satellite data also shows increased vegetation density since 2016. In 2020, Nashulai received the UNDP Equator Prize for community-led conservation.
The conservancy is also addressing poverty. Narok County faces unpredictable rainfall and high food insecurity. To respond, Nashulai employs community members as rangers and runs a training centre for tourism jobs, including photography and hospitality.
Ole Reiyia says tourism often overlooks local people. He explains, “Most of them do not employ local people; they say that the local people don’t have the requisite skills to get jobs. … So, we are trying to change that.”
Funding, however, remains a struggle. He says, “Our conservation model is not attractive for the big donor funding because we are small, we are community-run. Our concept is strange. How can you have communities living side by side with wildlife?”
For the community, Nashulai is more than a conservancy. It is a renewed effort to protect their land, their identity, and the wildlife they have lived alongside for generations.
Photo: Giraffes (Giraffa tippelskirchi) in the conservancy. Image © Nina Wang Mikkelsen, courtesy of Nashulai Maasai Conservancy for Mongabay
This story is based on an article written by Elodie Toto for Mongabay, titled “In Kenya, Maasai private landowners come together to protect wildlife corridors.” To read the full story, go to : https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/a-maasai-conservancy-uses-private-lands-to-protect-kenyas-wildlife-corridors/