The Athi-Kapiti & Kitengela
Community Conservancies
An expert guide to Kenya’s Southern Conservation Heartland — the community-held landscape that keeps Nairobi National Park ecologically alive.
This guide is a companion to the main NairobiPark.org guide on Conservation at Nairobi National Park. While that guide covers the full conservation picture of the park itself, this guide focuses specifically on the role of community and private conservancies in protecting the larger Athi-Kapiti ecosystem — the 4,000 km² landscape surrounding the park on which its long-term ecological survival depends.
Nairobi National Park covers 117 km² — just 5.3% of the Athi-Kapiti ecosystem. The remaining 94.7% is privately or communally owned. That land, and the decisions made by the communities and landowners who hold it, determine whether the park functions as a living ecosystem or gradually becomes a bounded zoo. The conservancies described here are the answer those communities have chosen.
The Athi-Kapiti Landscape
The Athi-Kapiti Plains span six counties — Nairobi, Kajiado, Machakos, Makueni, Kiambu, and Kitui — at altitudes ranging from 1,533 to 2,145 metres. The terrain moves from almost perfectly flat open savannah in the west, facing the city, to undulating country rising toward the Machakos uplands in the east, punctuated by the three inselbergs of Wami, Theki, and Kyumbi visible from Nairobi on a clear day.
Vegetation is predominantly savannah grassland and acacia bushland, grading into dense riverine gallery forest along the Mbagathi, Athi, and Stony Athi rivers. These river corridors are among the most biodiverse habitats in the region and are used as daily travel routes by the park’s large mammals.
The landscape plays an indispensable ecological role. According to the AKWCA Strategic Plan 2021–2025, the Athi-Kapiti plains connect Nairobi National Park’s wildlife populations to the Amboseli, Magadi, Ol Donyo Sabuk, and Tsavo ecosystems — and beyond, to the Serengeti system. Without this connectivity, the park becomes a genetic cul-de-sac.
The Five Conservation Triangles
AKWCA organises the landscape into five conservation zones — called “triangles” — each with an elected representative on the AKWCA Executive Committee. Click each tab to explore.
Kitengela — The Critical Corridor
The innermost zone, immediately south and southeast of Nairobi National Park, separated from it only by the Mbagathi River. This is the most ecologically critical triangle and the most severely pressured by urbanisation. The Mbagathi is the park’s unfenced southern boundary — everything on the other side of it is Kitengela.
Conservancies here include Naretunoi, Rimpa Estates, Silole Wildlife Sanctuary, and Olerai Community Conservancy. The Kitengela Wildlife Conservation Lease Programme — which pays Maasai landowners to keep their land unfenced — was established here in 2000 and remains the primary conservation finance tool in this zone.
Isinya — The Calving Grounds
The middle zone extending south from Kitengela toward the Isinya plains — historically the wildebeest calving grounds. It was here, between March and June, that the local migration’s wildebeest calved before returning north to the park. Olosira Conservancy (in formation) is the key conservation property in this zone.
Triangle 2 is both the most ecologically significant zone for breeding wildlife and one of the most under-conserved. The Kiserian–Isinya Road runs through it and, since its tarmacking and upgrade, has become a settlement magnet that is fragmenting the corridor from east to west.
Kipeto / Kaputiei North — The West Corridor
The western dispersal zone connecting the inner Kitengela triangle toward the broader Kajiado rangelands and the Amboseli corridor. Olerai Conservancy straddles the Triangle 2/3 interface. A proposed extension of Olerai toward Kipeto, if achieved, would create a continuous western corridor from the park boundary into the broader landscape.
Olosira Conservancy, currently in formation, is positioned in Kaputiei North as the critical wildlife connectivity corridor between the Olerai zone and the Machakos ranches — meaning Triangle 3 is the east-west hinge of the whole Athi-Kapiti network.
Kapiti / Machakos — The Ranch Zone
The outer eastern ranch zone in Machakos County, home to the six large Machakos ranches: ILRI Kapiti Estate (the largest property in the entire AKWCA network at over 12,000 ha), Swara Plains Conservancy (15,000 acres dedicated to wildlife), Lisa Ranch, New Astra Ranch, Mulinge Ranch, and Mwambi Ranch. Together these properties form a conservation block that functions as the midpoint of the Nairobi-to-Amboseli corridor.
Wildlife in Triangle 4 moves in from both directions: from Nairobi National Park via the inner corridors to the west, and from Amboseli to the south. Lions from Amboseli have been recorded in these ranches. The five Machakos ranches also host Kenya’s only spotless white-morph cheetah — an individual of extraordinary rarity.
Ol Donyo Sabuk / Kapiti-Lukenya
The northeastern zone anchored by Ol Donyo Sabuk National Park and the Lukenya escarpment. Conservancies here include Lukenya / Kasanga Ranch (a mixed cattle ranch and wildlife conservancy with leopards and cheetahs on the hills), Maanzoni Estate (a controlled development model conservancy), and the Konza Technopolis Wildlife Corridor (1,000 acres formally set aside by the Kenya government’s planned tech city).
AKWCA’s plan notes that criminal activities within Ol Donyo Sabuk National Park itself — including illegal sandalwood harvesting, charcoal making, and illegal grazing — are ongoing threats in this zone that education and advocacy programmes must address.
Wildlife of the Dispersal Landscape
The Athi-Kapiti ecosystem supports 24 species of resident large mammals and over 500 bird species. Endangered species confirmed within the landscape by the AKWCA Strategic Plan include:
The Kaputiei Maasai and the Land
The Athi-Kapiti landscape is the ancestral home of the Kaputiei Maasai — a section of the broader Maasai people who managed these plains as semi-nomadic pastoralists for generations. Their seasonal movement of cattle, sheep, and goats across the plains tracked rainfall and grass availability in a pattern that, by its nature, maintained the open, connected grassland on which wildlife depended. Maasai pastoralism and wildlife were not merely compatible; they were ecologically complementary.
Also present in the eastern sections are the Kamba people of Machakos and Kitui, who historically practised subsistence farming, beekeeping, and livestock rearing alongside wildlife.
In the mid-1970s, the collective group ranch system was privatised. The Kitengela Group Ranch — 18,292 ha (45,200 acres), collectively owned by 215 Maasai members — was subdivided into individual plots of roughly 215 acres per household. As these plots passed to children, were further subdivided, or sold to buyers from Nairobi, the once-continuous open landscape became progressively fragmented.
The AKWCA Strategic Plan identifies urbanisation and cultural erosion as compounding threats: as younger generations inherit ancestral land, more lucrative urban land uses replace pastoral ones. New owners from non-Maasai backgrounds have no historical relationship with wildlife. The conservancy movement is, in part, a cultural preservation mechanism — a way for Maasai communities to sustain their relationship with the land on their own economic terms.
The Conservancies — Complete Profiles
According to the AKWCA Strategic Plan 2021–2025, as of June 2021 there are 12 operational member conservancies and private ranches plus 12 proposed conservancies under AKWCA across six counties. Expand each conservancy below for the full profile.
Naretunoi is the most strategically critical conservancy in the Kitengela corridor. It occupies the land immediately south of the Mbagathi River — Nairobi National Park’s unfenced southern boundary — making it the first land animals step onto when they disperse from the park in the wet season.
The conservancy operates through a voluntary land lease programme administered by The Wildlife Foundation. Each participating Maasai landowner receives a per-acre annual payment — paid three times a year — in exchange for keeping their land unfenced, uncultivated, and open to wildlife movement. Livestock farming continues on the same land; conservation and pastoralism coexist as they historically did.
Wildlife recorded includes: black rhinoceros (crossing the Mbagathi almost daily to browse riverine acacia), lion, leopard (camera-trap confirmed), spotted hyena, zebra, wildebeest, eland, Masai giraffe, impala, Thomson’s gazelle, and a notable lovebird hybrid flock in the acacia understorey — a population of Fischer’s × Yellow-collared Lovebirds that ornithologists note with scientific interest.
Conflict mitigation uses Lion Lights — solar-powered flashing systems originally invented by 11-year-old Richard Turere of Kitengela — and reinforced predator-proof bomas. Together these tools reduce livestock losses and remove the incentive for retaliatory predator killing.
National recognition: A Naretunoi representative was appointed to the Kenyan government’s Task Force on Wildlife Corridor Connectivity between Nairobi National Park and the Athi-Kapiti Plains — the highest formal government acknowledgement the conservancy has received.
Tourism: The TWF Centre within the conservancy offers 23 guest bandas, a meeting room, restaurant (groups by advance booking), solar power and Wi-Fi. Activities include guided walking safaris, birdwatching, mountain biking, wildlife count participation, camera trap deployment, Lion Light installation, and Mbagathi riverbank walks.
Rimpa is a wildlife and livestock haven that occupies some of the most urbanistically pressured land in the Kitengela triangle — sandwiched between the expanding town centres of Kiserian, Tuala, and Rongai on the western gateway to the dispersal area. Its survival as open conservation land is a daily contest against land-value pressure from urban expansion.
The owner is committed to conserving wildlife alongside compatible land use. The conservancy operates a camping ground called The Reserve, where guests enjoy expansive views of savannah woodland vegetation and wildlife — providing the economic justification for maintaining conservation over development.
Connectivity role: AKWCA’s conservancy map identifies Rimpa as a critical western corridor component, linking Naretunoi (southeast) with Silole Wildlife Sanctuary and Ole Kasio Ranch — bridging wildlife movement between the Kitengela inner zone and properties further west toward Ngong.
Silole adjoins Nairobi National Park from the southwest, between the township of Tuala. Unlike the flat Kitengela plains, Silole occupies rolling terrain between the deep gorges of the Embakasi and Kiserian rivers — a topographically varied landscape that supports different wildlife communities from the open grassland zone.
Critically, the section where Silole adjoins the park is unfenced. According to the AKWCA Strategic Plan, Silole receives most of Nairobi National Park’s southwestern wildlife precisely because of this unfenced adjacency — including predators and large herbivores using the western corridor.
Tourism: The Maasai Lodge, operated within Silole Wildlife Sanctuary, is the primary income source and gives guests a wildlife experience in terrain that feels distinctly different from the park interior. The rocky gorge landscape offers excellent birding opportunities.
Olerai is one of the most biodiverse and institutionally significant conservancies in the Athi-Kapiti landscape. The Kisaju River within Olerai Community Conservancy hosts one of the most critical nesting colonies of the white-backed vulture in the ecosystem — an endangered species whose populations are collapsing across Africa due to poisoning, electrocution on power lines, and habitat loss.
African wild dogs (painted wolves) have been confirmed within Olerai — one of the most significant wildlife records in the Kitengela zone. Wild dogs require enormous home ranges and are exquisitely sensitive to habitat fragmentation. Their presence at Olerai demonstrates that sufficient connected open land still exists here to support the species’ movement, at least occasionally.
Kipeto Energy partnership: Olerai has an innovative partnership with Kipeto Energy, whose wind farm near the Kwenia Cliffs is close to critical vulture nesting sites. Kipeto operates a biodiversity department with a birds rescue centre working closely with local communities to mitigate adverse effects of wind turbines on soaring birds. Scouts regularly monitor vultures, resident raptors, and migratory soaring birds — a corporate-conservation partnership unique in the AKWCA network.
Expansion potential: AKWCA’s Strategic Plan proposes a future extension of Olerai toward Kipeto, which would create a continuous western corridor from the inner Kitengela zone into the broader Kajiado rangelands — one of the most important potential conservation gains in the entire ecosystem.
Sholinke is the critical missing link in the inner Kitengela corridor. According to the AKWCA Strategic Plan, it is a “potential conservancy” that would connect Naretunoi Community Conservancy, Rimpa Wildlife Conservancy, Ole Kasio Ranch, and Olerai into a continuous block.
The property straddles the Munchiriri gorge — a dramatic landscape feature identified as both a key wildlife migration route for Nairobi National Park animals moving into the wider Athi-Kapiti landscape, and a potential ecotourism attraction. If Sholinke is fenced or developed before conservancy status is achieved, a vital wildlife corridor will be permanently severed.
AKWCA’s Strategic Plan identifies Sholinke as a priority for formalisation support — using its mandate to support the registration of conservancies in critical wildlife spaces.
Ole Kasio is a large cattle ranch adjacent to Rimpa Wildlife Conservancy, currently in the process of formal conservancy registration. It receives wildlife from the neighbouring Rimpa and Sholinke areas, making it functionally part of the wildlife landscape even before formal designation.
The AKWCA Strategic Plan highlights its strategic value: Ole Kasio bridges wildlife connectivity between Kitengela conservation areas and Rimpa Wildlife Conservancy. If Sholinke is also formalised, the three properties together would create a substantial connected conservation block on the western and northern flank of the Triangle 1 corridor.
Olosira and its associated cattle ranches are in Kaputiei North (Zone 3), bordering the Machakos Ranches and the Kajiado–Mashuuru road. The AKWCA Strategic Plan identifies Olosira as one of the most strategically important conservancies in the entire ecosystem despite still being in formation.
Its location makes it the east-west hinge of the Athi-Kapiti corridor — the critical wildlife connectivity link between Olerai Conservancy in Zone 2 and the Machakos ranches in Zone 4. If Olosira achieves formal conservancy status, a continuous corridor from Nairobi National Park’s immediate boundary through to the Amboseli ecosystem becomes possible. That is the prize AKWCA’s formalisation support for Olosira is working toward.
The Kapiti Plains Estate is both the largest single conservation property in the AKWCA network and one of the most scientifically significant. ILRI — one of the world’s leading agricultural research institutions — has operated Kapiti as a research station for decades, generating foundational knowledge on livestock-wildlife coexistence, rangeland management, land fragmentation, and pastoral livelihood economics.
ILRI’s research at Kapiti has directly shaped conservation policy across the Athi-Kapiti landscape. The Wildlife Conservation Lease Programme — now the primary conservation finance tool in the Kitengela inner zone — was developed in part through ILRI’s engagement with community land-use economics. Studies on fencing impacts and wildlife population trends produced some of the most influential scientific evidence on East African rangeland conservation.
Swara Plains Conservancy (Hopcraft Ranch) has committed 15,000 acres explicitly to wildlife conservation — a formally dedicated conservation area. The Hopcraft family, long-term managers of Swara Plains, are pioneers of wildlife ranching in Kenya with deep experience managing livestock and wildlife on the same landscape.
Together with the neighbouring Machakos ranches, Swara Plains hosts Kenya’s only known spotless white-morph cheetah — an extraordinarily rare genetic variant never recorded elsewhere in the country. Lions from Amboseli have been recorded in these ranches, evidence of the long-distance corridor connectivity that still functions when land remains open.
Lisa Ranch, New Astra Ranch, and Mulinge Ranch (Machakos Ranching Limited) are the remaining three properties in the Machakos ranch group. Together with ILRI Kapiti and Swara Plains, these six ranches form a conservation block located between the Standard Gauge Railway line and the Olosira zone — positioned at the midpoint of the Nairobi-to-Amboseli wildlife corridor.
Collectively the Machakos ranches are diverse in wildlife and avian abundance and receive animals from both directions: from Nairobi National Park via the inner corridors, and from Amboseli to the south. Lisa Ranch borders the Konza Technopolis Wildlife Corridor, making it part of the interface between the traditional ranching landscape and Kenya’s planned tech city development.
The Konza Technopolis — Kenya’s planned technology city, a Vision 2030 flagship project — has formally set aside 1,000 of its 5,000 total acres for wildlife conservation and connectivity purposes. The land borders Lisa Ranch and the Kapiti Estate, meaning the corridor is physically connected to the existing Machakos ranch conservation block rather than being an isolated green space.
The AKWCA Strategic Plan identifies Konza’s wildlife corridor as a significant opportunity requiring strategic engagement — ensuring the corridor is managed for genuine ecological function rather than existing only on paper. Conservation engagement with the Technopolis development authority sits squarely within AKWCA’s Goal 2 mandate for land use planning advocacy.
The Lukenya Hills form one of the most dramatic landscape features of the Athi-Kapiti plains — a long, rocky escarpment rising abruptly from the flat savannah, visible for tens of kilometres. The Kasanga Ranch / Lukenya Conservancy protects this topographically distinctive terrain.
Lukenya is a mixed cattle ranch and wildlife conservancy with abundant ungulate populations. Resident predators including leopards and cheetahs have been recorded on the hills of Lukenya — according to the AKWCA Strategic Plan — species that use the rocky terrain and woodland margins of the escarpment for cover, denning, and hunting. The hills provide habitat that the flat Kitengela plains cannot, supporting predator species that require topographic complexity.
Maanzoni is distinctive in the AKWCA network for its governance model: a controlled development model conservancy, managed by the Maanzoni Landowners Association, that provides for sustainable human settlement while actively accommodating wildlife. Rather than excluding development entirely, Maanzoni’s model integrates it — managing settlement density and patterns to ensure wildlife movement remains possible across the property.
This makes Maanzoni a demonstration site for a concept with enormous implications for the rest of the Athi-Kapiti landscape: that conservation and managed residential development are not inherently incompatible. The estate receives wildlife from Swara Plains Conservancy across the Mombasa highway — through a crossing zone AKWCA identifies as critical for east-west connectivity.
Ulu Conservancy is a privately-owned hill and woodland forest set in Makueni County, approximately 4 km from Konza Technopolis across the Nairobi–Mombasa Highway. The AKWCA Strategic Plan describes it as a “hikers and sundowners paradise” with both indigenous and foreign-born tree cover — ecologically distinct from the open savannah character of most of the ecosystem.
The conservancy hosts African cape buffalo and a diversity of birdlife. Its position as AKWCA’s southernmost property, connected to the Konza Technopolis corridor, makes it part of the most extended corridor configuration in the system — a potential link running all the way from Nairobi National Park to Makueni.
Yatta B2 is the largest-membership and most geographically remote conservancy in the AKWCA network. With over 4,500 individual members and 9,352 ha of land, it is a substantial community-owned conservation cooperative along the Machakos–Kitui Highway, extending AKWCA’s network into Kitui County.
Wildlife recorded includes zebra, Masai giraffe, lesser kudu, and yellow baboon. The lesser kudu record indicates the more arid, wooded character of the Kitui landscape compared to the open plains closer to Nairobi — a different ecological zone that broadens the biodiversity of the AKWCA network.
Northlands City is set on 11,576 acres in Ruiru Municipality, Kiambu County. Its master plan proposes that 5,156 acres — nearly half the total site — be set aside for wildlife conservation. The site hosts Thomson’s gazelles, bushbuck, common duiker, baboons, and diverse birdlife.
If implemented to genuine conservation standards, Northlands would add a significant block of green space to AKWCA’s network on the northern fringe of Nairobi — the opposite side of the city from the Kitengela dispersal area, potentially creating a two-sided conservation frame around the capital.
Athi-Kapiti Wildlife Conservancies Association (AKWCA)
AKWCA was registered in March 2014 as a landscape-level, not-for-profit membership organisation under Kenya’s Societies Act. It represents conservation landowners in Kajiado, Machakos, Kitui, Kiambu, Nairobi, and Makueni counties. The Association is governed by an Executive Committee of seven elected members representing the five conservation triangles, chaired by David Sorimpan of Olerai Conservancy.
AKWCA’s Symbol: The Whistling Thorn
AKWCA chose the Whistling Thorn (Vachellia drepanolobium) as its logo — one of the most characteristic trees of the Athi-Kapiti savannah. When wind passes through holes made by ants in its modified hollow thorns, it creates a whistling sound. The tree’s relationship with the ants is symbiotic: ants protect it from browsers (including elephants, deterred by biting the inside of their trunks) while the tree provides the ants with shelter. AKWCA identifies with this model of mutual coexistence — and uniquely, the Whistling Thorn lacks the toxic chemicals of other acacias, making it open and accessible to its ecosystem rather than defended against it.
Theory of Change
A strong and effective regional association acts as the voice, facilitator and enabler of conservation in the region
Will lead to an enabling policy environment; areas secured for conservation; improved wildlife management; and improved community livelihoods
This will deliver long-term social, economic and ecological benefits
Leading to thriving wildlife and people within the Athi-Kapiti landscape
Four Strategic Goals (2021–2025)
Support formation of new conservancies, improve wildlife monitoring, build landowner capacity in governance.
Advocate for benefit-sharing mechanisms, land use zoning to protect corridors, and engagement with county governments and private sector.
Promote photographic tourism, carbon credits, PES schemes, cultural tourism, filming, sports tourism, and sustainable livestock ranching as alternatives to land sale.
Establish a functional secretariat, develop communications capacity, diversify revenue beyond grant funding, build board governance.
Documented Achievements
As recorded in the AKWCA Strategic Plan 2021–2025:
AKWCA Within the National Picture (KWCA)
AKWCA is a member of the Kenya Wildlife Conservancies Association (KWCA) — the national umbrella body representing all conservancies in Kenya. According to the KWCA Strategic Plan 2019–2023, by 2018 Kenya had over 160 conservancies covering more than 11% of the country’s land area, collectively benefiting over 700,000 households. Two-thirds of Kenya’s wildlife populations live outside formal state-managed areas — on land co-inhabited by people. Conservancies are not a peripheral conservation mechanism. They are the central mechanism for Kenya’s wildlife survival.
According to KWCA research cited in the KWCA Strategic Plan (drawing on Ogutu et al., 2016), wildlife across Kenya has declined by an average of 68% since 1977, with many key drivers — habitat loss, human-wildlife conflict, poaching — occurring primarily outside parks and reserves. This is precisely the space conservancies are designed to protect.
KWCA’s Regional Association assessment placed AKWCA in the “start-up / early growth” phase, acknowledging limited growth since 2014 inception but recognising the committed new Executive Committee and the 2021 Strategic Plan as markers of genuine institutional development. AKWCA’s Year 1 implementation budget was set at KES 18,240,000.
Threats to the Dispersal Landscape
Climate Change
The AKWCA Strategic Plan identifies drastic shifts in rainfall patterns as the most significant climate impact — delayed rains, reduced long-rains seasons, and prolonged drought. These cause direct wildlife mortality, increase livestock loss, and intensify human-wildlife conflict over water.
Invasive Alien Plants
Four invasive species are documented in the Athi-Kapiti area by AKWCA as actively degrading habitat quality:
- Parthenium hysterophorus — produces 25,000 seeds per plant; outcompetes indigenous flora; causes livestock mouth ulcers
- Lantana camara — forms dense impenetrable thickets in riparian and rangeland areas; poisonous to livestock
- Mathenge (Prosopis juliflora) — introduced in 1970s to curb desertification; blocks roads, riverbanks; causes livestock tooth loss
- Water Hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) — clogs water bodies; reduces dissolved oxygen; disrupts wetland ecology
Forest & Catchment Loss
According to Kenya’s National Climate Change Response Strategy, cited in the AKWCA Strategic Plan, forest cover in Kenya has fallen from 12% in the 1960s to less than 7.4% at present. This has substantially reduced the ability of Kenya’s five main Water Towers to act as water catchments for major rivers — the primary water sources for both rural communities and urban centres including Nairobi.
No Benefit-Sharing Mechanism
No clear policy ensures that landholders who maintain wildlife dispersal areas actually benefit from doing so. Communities and landowners provide conservation services of national and international value — but bear the costs (livestock predation, foregone land development) with minimal compensation beyond lease payments that cover only a fraction of potential land income.
Implementation Lag
Even where favourable legislation exists (Wildlife Act 2013, Community Land Act 2016), AKWCA identifies implementation as lagging badly. County governments have not developed the conservation-supportive land use plans and zoning regulations needed to legally protect wildlife corridors. Without zoning, fencing and development cannot be prevented on private land.
Fencing & Land Fragmentation
The three major road corridors — Nairobi–Mombasa Highway, Kiserian–Isinya Road, and A104 Nairobi–Namanga Highway — have become axes of settlement expansion. The Kiserian–Isinya Road’s upgrade and tarmacking attracted accelerated fencing and building along its length, directly fragmenting the Kitengela inner corridor. Wildlife road kills are frequently reported along all three routes.
Cultural Erosion
As the area urbanises and younger generations inherit land, the pastoral value system that sustained coexistence with wildlife is eroding. New landowners from non-Maasai backgrounds — increasingly common as land is sold to buyers from Nairobi — have no cultural or historical relationship with wildlife and no economic reason to keep land open.
Poaching & Species Poisoning
Poaching has increased alongside improved road access. Poachers set snares along fence lines and riverbanks, and use spotlights to daze animals at night. The AKWCA Strategic Plan specifically identifies the white-backed vulture, Rüppell’s vulture, and African wild dog as facing increased mortality from deliberate poisoning — often carried out to reduce human-wildlife conflict with wild dogs. Within Ol Donyo Sabuk National Park, illegal sandalwood harvesting, charcoal making, and illegal grazing are also documented.
Opportunities for Conservation Financing
The AKWCA Strategic Plan explicitly identifies the following as viable revenue and conservation opportunities for the Athi-Kapiti landscape:
The proximity to Nairobi and the dramatic open landscape make wildlife photography tourism — for both professionals and visitors — a significant commercial opportunity still largely unrealised.
With 5+ million Nairobi residents living within 30 minutes of this landscape, school conservation education is an immediate and underserved market. Naretunoi’s TWF Centre is specifically set up for this.
Open savannah and acacia woodland sequester carbon. Well-documented conservancies with verified land-use histories can access emerging carbon markets, converting the ecosystem’s standing biomass into conservation finance.
The Kitengela Wildlife Conservation Lease Programme is already a PES mechanism. Expanding and diversifying PES to cover broader ecosystem services — water catchment, biodiversity, scenic value — could significantly increase per-acre conservation payments.
The AKWCA plan specifically identifies filming as an opportunity, noting the landscape’s “breath-taking” cinematic quality. It has long served as a backdrop for wildlife documentaries. Formalising this into a revenue stream for conservancies is an immediate opportunity.
The flat, open Athi-Kapiti plains have historically been used for rally and motorsports events. Formalising this as a conservancy revenue stream — with appropriate conservation covenants — provides income while maintaining open land.
The Maasai cultural heritage of the landscape — combined with documented archaeological sites in the region — offers a dimension of tourism as yet underexplored.
The AKWCA plan refers to Nairobi’s status as the “Silicon Savannah” as a potential source of technology, data tools, and institutional partnerships for conservation monitoring — an opportunity that is structurally closer here than anywhere else in Africa.
Full Conservancy Register
Source: AKWCA Strategic Plan 2021–2025. Status as of June 2021.
| Conservancy | County | Zone | Size | Status | KWS | KWCA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Naretunoi | Kajiado | Triangle 1 | 1,012 ha (33 hh) | Operational | ✓ | ✓ |
| Rimpa Estates | Kajiado | Triangle 1 | — | Operational | ✓ | ✓ |
| Silole Wildlife Sanctuary | Kajiado | Triangle 1 | — | Operational | — | ✓ |
| Olerai Community | Kajiado | Triangle 2/3 | — | Operational | ✓ | ✓ |
| Sholinke | Kajiado | Triangle 1/2 | — | In formation | — | — |
| Ole Kasio Ranch | Kajiado | Triangle 1 | — | In formation | — | — |
| Olosira | Kajiado | Triangle 3 | — | In formation | — | — |
| ILRI Kapiti Estate | Machakos | Triangle 4 | 12,000+ ha | Operational | ✓ | ✓ |
| Swara Plains | Machakos | Triangle 4 | 15,000 ac dedicated | Operational | — | ✓ |
| Lisa Ranch | Machakos | Triangle 4 | — | Operational | — | ✓ |
| New Astra Ranch | Machakos | Triangle 4 | — | Operational | — | — |
| Mulinge Ranch | Machakos | Triangle 4 | — | Operational | — | — |
| Konza Technopolis Corridor | Machakos | Triangle 4/5 | 1,000 acres | Designated | — | — |
| Lukenya / Kasanga Ranch | Machakos | Triangle 5 | — | Operational | — | ✓ |
| Maanzoni Estate | Machakos | Triangle 5 | — | Operational | — | ✓ |
| Ulu Conservancy | Makueni | South extension | ~1,000 acres | In development | — | — |
| Yatta B2 Wildlife Conservancy | Kitui | East extension | 9,352 ha · 4,500+ members | Developing | — | — |
| Northlands City Area | Kiambu | North extension | 5,156 ac proposed | Proposed | — | — |
hh = households. — = not confirmed or not yet applicable. Source: AKWCA Strategic Plan 2021–2025 and KWCA Strategic Plan 2019–2023.
One Chain, Many Links
When the park’s wildebeest disperse south across the Mbagathi in March, they move through Naretunoi, across the Kitengela plains, past Rimpa and Silole and Olerai, toward Isinya and the Machakos ranches. Every parcel in that chain must remain open. Every household in that chain must find conservation economically viable. Every conservancy in that chain must have the governance capacity to manage its land, respond to threats, and sustain its commitment.
The conservancy network described in this guide is that chain. Its weakest link defines the ecosystem’s future. Its strongest link — Naretunoi, holding the line at the Mbagathi — demonstrates what is possible when communities, conservation organisations, and visitors invest in the same outcome.
According to the AKWCA Strategic Plan, AKWCA’s problem statement is precise: “A fragmented and rapidly developing landscape threatens the viability of wildlife populations and sustainable livelihood options.” The answer is equally precise: a strong regional association, working conservancy by conservancy, parcel by parcel, to hold the landscape open until policy, finance, and community commitment make it permanent.
