ENONKISHU, Kenya — Bernard Lesshinga, a Maasai herder from southern Kenya, likes easy days running his cattle business.
But until recently, Lesshinga hadn’t figured out how to help her farm animals compete with wildlife for pasture or protect themselves from predators; While ranchers here build a boma (a permanent corral or shed) to protect their herds at night, other people like him who move away from the house struggle to avoid predation. And when pastures are degraded and wild grazing declines in numbers, predators in Kenya’s complex Masai Mara food chain most likely target livestock.
A breakthrough for ranchers like Lesshinga came in 2017, when mobile bomas were brought to the Enonkishu Conservancy. These are cellular mesh enclosures where breeders spend the night with their livestock, protected from predators. Every 10 days of the dry season, locals blame their hard work for manually moving the sheds to a new site, regularly with handcarts or wearing down portions by hand. During the rains, they perform this task every two weeks.
“In the past, predators would attack our livestock because shepherds and herders could fit less and classic sheds may no longer be home to wildlife. The upgraded hangars prevent you from those attacks,” Lesshinga said.
He explained that the reason for the decline in herbivores in the last decade is due to worsening droughts that have burned grasslands. According to ReliefWeb, severe drought affected Kenya’s arid and semi-arid regions between 2010-2011, 2016-2017, and 2020-2022.
But scientists have also linked the decline in onongulates to threats to the country’s five migratory corridors; and one of them, the Mara-Loita road, has almost disappeared. The other four, including the Mara-Serengeti Highway, the Great Amboseli Highway, the Manyara-Tarangire Highway and the African Plains Highway of Nairobi National Park, are also almost extinct. According to Nicholas Oguge, director of environmental policy at the Centre for Advanced Environmental Studies, Law and Policy (CASELAP) at the University of Nairobi.
There are several reasons why wildlife migration corridors are facing increasing pressure, adding to climate change. But Oguge said the biggest fear is true real estate progression and infrastructure expansion, as land moves from community to individual ownership. This was demonstrated through his recent stopover on Mongabay. the region.
Traveling from Nairobi to the eastern gate of the Masai Mara, it’s easy to see acres of fenced land awaiting sale for asset development. Local cattle, unable to cross the barriers, are forced to graze along the road.
No Fence
This trend is repeated in the rolling plains, until the road dissolves into the Mara ecosystem. Here, locals have dismantled fences and restored the land to the classic grazing system, and rightly so.
Thanks to cell bomas, locals have found that they can consolidate their individual plots into one reserve, let plants fill up by moving herds and gain an ongoing source of income from wildlife tourism, or profit from asset sales that leave families destitute once the money runs out. worn out. .
The sheds, which range from a tennis court to half a football field, not only help with grass control and plant growth, but also protect livestock from nighttime attacks by wildlife, Lesshinga said.
The trick is to keep moving with the bomas and place them on degraded land, while the farm animals graze on other pastured ones. In the afternoon, shepherds take their flocks to rest for the night, repeating this trend for about 4 days beforehand. moving to some other Array, he explained.
“Not even a lion can easily get into the boma, because it goes through the steel fence that surrounds it,” Lesshinga said as she pushed with all her weight toward the shed, which was not moving.
The science of plant recharge is based on farm animal droppings, hoof strength and rainfall, according to Daniel Sayialel, the network’s conservation liaison in Enonkishu, which covers about 2,400 hectares (6,000 acres). Cattle droppings enrich the soil wherever the bomas are found. They are placed temporarily, and undigested seeds that the animal may have ingested are spread.
And their hooves also leave tiny footprints on the surface of the soil inside the bomas, which helps rain seep into the soil, where seeds can use it to germinate, or run off as runoff.
“The bureaucracy, which is replenished by the rains, creates its own bubbles of life, which seed the land with grasses and new vegetation,” Sayialel explained, adding that a single boma can house between 400 and 1,000 domestic animals, depending on its size.
Regeneration Research
While cell bomas began appearing here in southern Kenya six years ago, the 53-year-old International Livestock Research and Conservation Institute (ILRI) Wildlife Research and Conservation Station, which borders Nairobi National Park in the southeast, has been studying the effectiveness of bomas. Cell phones for more than seven years.
Nehemiah Kimengich, director of the Kapiti ranch, said the creation of the bomas was mainly for study purposes and that they had discovered additional benefits for the sheds. The normal movement of bomas and cattle from one site to another, at least each and every 10 days during the dry season and about every fortnight during the rainy season, also appears to help control the spread of animal diseases. When herds are kept in permanent pens, their proximity and manure accumulation create situations in which pathogens that cause livestock diseases such as East Coast fever can reproduce and multiply.
Another advantage is the control of invasive plant species that suffocate ecosystems: when a cell boma is placed in a place that these plants have colonized, the intense animal traffic eliminates the weeds.
Another positive aspect of walking bomas is to avoid inbreeding among grazing wildlife, luring them to newly regenerated herbaceous spaces throughout the landscape and away from controlled systems such as Nairobi National Park, allowing them to locate new mates.
“The type of grass that appears in a planted site grows quickly, is sweet and tasty for herbivores. This attracts those grazing areas from other ecosystems,” Kimengich said, adding that his grazing plan reserves 40% of the pasture and 60%. for livestock.
Also to tourists
The positive effects of cellular bomas have also attracted other people from far and wide. In Enonkishu, the good fortune of his inventions has boosted local tourism and created more than 2,000 jobs, according to the Maasai Mara Wildlife Conservation Association (MMWCA).
A 2021 study by the U. S. Agency for International Development (USAID) looked at the economic value of East Africa’s natural resources and estimated that Kenya’s Mara ecosystem is worth about $6. 5 billion to communities. On Lesshinga’s network, this value is estimated to be around $7. 5. millions of annual profits from tourism, which has been boosted by the return of rare wildlife species such as the “Big Five” (lion, leopard, rhino, elephant and African buffalo) and the African wild dog.
However, increased activity at the Enonkishu Conservancy due to those successes is leading to an increase in human conflict, according to Sgt. Maj. Francis Dapash, a ranger serving in the Masai Mara.
The presence of big cats such as lions has greater attacks on domestic animals when they graze during the day, while giant herbivores such as elephants attack crops bordering the reserve, he said.
“Grazing in Enonkishu can be done all year round, even during the dry season. This becomes a challenge because we have no control over the growing number of wild animals that come here,” Dapash said.
Another thing is that the other inhabitants of the reserve have changed their land use from agriculture to conservation, as conservation tourism generates more income for them, according to the MMWCA.
While raids and worsening droughts lead to low agricultural yields, converting land for conservation has quick, long-term financial benefits, said Daniel Sopia, executive director of MMWCA.
More than 4,000 hectares (10,000 acres) of land used to be cultivated in Enonkishu and near the greenhouses, however, some 3,200 hectares (8,000 acres) were converted into conservation spaces after the advent of the cell bomas, according to members of the nonprofit in an interview.
This can also lead to a decline in food sovereignty, as nutritious products that were once sourced locally may no longer make it to plates in the long term due to reduced harvests, warned Million Belay, coordinator of the Food Alliance. Sovereignty in Africa.
However, if other people on the reserve who take advantage of the use of their land to attract can buy food elsewhere, this would possibly not be a challenge and overall, the undeniable solution of cellular bomas turns out to be very positive for both communities and conservation.
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