Evaluating Outcomes Of Community-Based Conservation On Kenyan Group Ranches With Remote Sensing

African Wildlife Foundation

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Abstract: Conservationists have adopted community-based conservation (CBC) strategies to support landscape conservation programmes in East Africa,and these projects often involve community development assistance in exchange for a commitment to dedicating a portion of community lands for conservation management. There is,however,a dearth of empirical evidence assessing the effectiveness of CBC conservation programmes. This paper uses submetre-resolution satellite imagery to measure land-use change on four Kenyan group ranches that had created CBCs. Each ranch underwent a common participatory planning process that established a land-use plan involving three management zones: conservation,livestock grazing and settlement/cultivation. Using a satellite image time series,we recorded threat-based development â?? anthropogenic modification of natural areas and the density of structures â?? for each ranch. We found that CBCs with tourism lodges were more effective at controlling development than the CBCs without a lodge,particularly in the conservation zones and,to a lesser degree,in the grazing zones. We conclude that our use of very-high-resolution satellite imagery offers conservationists a cost-effective,fast and replicable approach to measuring CBC land-use change and that CBC projects can lead to positive conservation results.