Row over cheetah project stokes fears of foul play in the Mara

By special correspondent

The fight between the investors who are proposing to put up a new cheetah sanctuary in the greater Masai Mara ecosystem on the one hand, and the Kenya Tourism Federation (KTF) on the other, is in many ways a replay of the tragic drama seen in the Mau forest saga.

But viewed in purely legalistic terms, it is really no different from the familiar disputes of residents of a suburban neighborhood fighting to prevent a nightclub from being built there, arguing that the noise would prevent them from sleeping and the influx of unsavory characters wandering through their previously serene streets at every hour of the night, would make their neighborhood unsafe; while the nightclub entrepreneur argues that he is free to do as he wishes with his property.

However, given where this disagreement has taken place, it is a matter of national importance.

What’s at stake

Here are the basic details: It would appear that two Spanish investors known as Jorge Alesandro Rodriguez Del Castillo and Maia De La O Liberal have secured a 50-year lease on land parcel 79 in the Koyaki Region of the greater Masai Mara area and obtained an environment impact assessment from the National Environmental Management Authority (Nema) to build a drive through wildlife zoo in the middle of Kenya’s most famous wildlife conservation area.

The proposed site for cheetah sanctuary in the Mara. [PHOTO: COURTESY]

The basic concept of the Kenya Cheetah Foundation (KCF) is to capture, breed and release to conserve an endangered species.

Some 24 cages are being constructed for public viewing of the captured animals to be segregated by age and sex. The project will work in partnership with overseas zoos. It will also involve the construction of tourist accommodation within the parcel of land which will have an electric fence around the perimeter.

The only known way to collect cheetah for such a project is to dart and capture them. The project is silent on the area where such darting will take place. However, given the scale of the project (each cage may hold up to four animals) it could be the entire Mara area. It is likely that a ticket fee will be payable for tourists to drive through and walk around the fenced zoo. But what is the controversy and what can be wrong in protecting an endangered species?

The cheetah needs plenty of rangeland and a supply of suitable small plains game prey to exist in its natural wild state. Large wildlife conservation zones in Africa offer the only real chance for survival in the natural state and for that reason the land owners of small plots in the outer Mara have voluntarily set aside more than 50,000 acres, and farming and other activities that destroy cheetah habitat are not allowed. Just a few land owners failed to join the scheme and one of them is the owner of Plot 79 that will be used to construct the Cheetah Petting Zoo.

Bleak future

"No one has ever successfully bred cheetahs and released them in the wild successfully. (This) area is prevalent with several prides of lions and a significant number of leopards who will decimate any released cheetahs within a short period of time. Capturing and breeding cheetahs will either result in the captivation of our cheetah population or will result in the destruction of our cheetahs when they are subsequently released," says the CEO of the Masai Mara North Conservancy, Ms Joyce Waihoro, in a letter of objection to Nema.

The question being asked is why Nema licensed the facility when a freeze on new projects in the Mara is in place.

In an advert last Friday, Nema defended its decision, arguing that all stakeholders were consulted and that the Kenya Wildlife Services (KWS) was in the picture from start to finish. When contacted, KWS communications manager Paul Udoto declined to comment, saying the management was still appraising the issue.

Talk of Sabotage

KTF says none of its members was consulted. Also joining the debate is a "Maasai Landowners Federation" (MLF) which issued a press statement in support of Nema, and claims that the KTF is motivated purely by a desire to limit new entrants into the Mara, who would offer competition to the existing camps and lodges run by KTF members.

But the MLF is an organisation without office bearers, and appears to have been established principally in response to this controversy.

Why this should matter to the rest of the country – including the 99.9% of Kenyans who have never once been to the Mara – is that the outside world knows the Masai Mara as a vast and untouched wilderness. And the Mara is the jewel in the crown of Kenya’s tourism sector.

As such, anything that proposes to fundamentally alter the face of the Mara — and specifically, create a zoo in what the country markets to the outside world as a "wilderness" area —is a national issue.

It is in this sense that it bears comparison with what has happened in the Mau forest: the settling of "landless" people there in the Moi era seemed reasonable enough to most Kenyans, except for a few environmentalists who warned that we were courting disaster: but now — too late — the consequences of meddling with forest cover in a water catchment area is now only too obvious in the drying streams, including those which feed the Mara River.

Likewise, if a day comes when tourists driving through the Mara "wilderness" suddenly come across a zoo very similar to the ones they have back home, it will be the end of the Mara’s reputation as one of the world’s great wilderness areas, and an irreversible blow to Kenya’s tourism.

Meantime, even as the arguments and media battle continue, construction is already proceeding on the proposed site of the cheetah sanctuary under heavy security.

 

 

Read all about: Kenya Tourism Federation Kenya Cheetah Foundation KTF

 

 

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