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AFRICAN CONSERVATION CENTRE
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The African Conservation Centre is a regionally focused conservation organisation based in Nairobi, Kenya dedicated to the conservation of biological resources.

Our Work:

New Feature Article:
A Viable Elephant Range

From The Field:
Monitoring the Amboseli ecosystem

The two cow boys - The Malpai Maasai

More Reports and Articles

Upcoming:
Land cover map for the Southern Rift

(Updated August 2005)

ACC's main objectives are:

• To establish a centre of excellence dedicated to forging partnerships to identify and develop the scientific, economic, social and management skills for conservation.
• To develop a regional institution with global vision and outreach.

This site was made possible through a grant from the Ford Foundation.

Community Based Participatory Mapping Of Land Use Options

The ecological zones in which biodiversity is often richest are also the areas in which some of the poorest people live. These people depend on the natural resources around them for production and extractive purposes eg. Tilling soils, harvesting forest produce, watering crops and livestock etc..

Conservationists and development partners increasingly recognise that efforts to conserve biological diversity will not succeed unless local people perceive those efforts as serving their economic and cultural interests. Conservation strategies must therefore play a dual role of improving the management of natural resources and the quality of life of people. Unless the people who are most directly impacted by conservation projects perceive that those projects serve their economic and cultural interests, long-term conservation of biodiversity will not be feasible.

Innovative approaches must be applied to increase the probability of promoting successful conservation of biodiversity. Local communities need to be enabled and empowered to manage their natural resources on a continuous basis in order to ensure the effective and sustainable conservation of otherwise threatened biological resources.

By using tools that enable participatory development and implementation of natural resource management policies we expect to achieve greater success in the conservation efforts which would respect local institutions, cultures and livelihoods.

GIS is one of the tools that is being used to equip communities in the management of their natural resources.

In Imbirikani Group Ranch, which borders Amboseli National Park, we are using GIS to :

a) Assist the local communities understand and appreciate the natural resources available to them and the need for sustainable resource use
b) Map the location and of these resources
c) Identify the key threats to these resources and their conservation
d) Map out their proposed strategy to manage the resources (zoning)

Lucy Chege-Waruingi - January 2002

Imbirikani Group Ranch:
ZIP(359Kb) - Click Here
.PDF (526kb) - Click Here

Summary map of Imbirikani and 3 other
Community Conservation Project areas:
ZIP (202Kb) - Click Here!
PDF (213Kb) Click Here!

ACC - P O Box 15289 - Nairobi - Kenya - Tel: +254 2 891360 or 891751 - Fax +254 2 891751 - E-mail: info@conservationafrica.org
Langata Road, Karen, Nairobi, Kenya
ACC is a registered Non Governmental Organisation No. OP.218/051/94212/496 in Kenya. © African Conservation Centre 2001 - Design by