We had our first field lecture at the top of Mount Olosoito. Our teacher, Daniel, used the landscape around us as a real life map of the local riverine systems that fed all life in the Amboseli/Kimana region. He spoke of how important the snow melt from Mount Kilimanjaro was, as it supplements the scare and unpredictable rainfall in the region. Rainfed agriculture is nearly impossible at 350-500mm of rain a year, so farms must be irrigated. This means siphoning water off the streams and out off the swamps with diesel pumps. This often cuts those downstream off, and makes the water resources that both livestock and wildlife depend on more sparse and scant than ever.

The transition from pastoralism to agriculture in this region has brought many changes to this area. Human want progress and change, you cannot tell a group of people to stay stagnant and not improve their livelihoods. Yet the agriculture- especially in this dry, nutrient poor area- is quite unsustainable. It also carves up the landscape, fragmenting habitats. This creates increased human-wildlife conflict as animals raid farms for food, or crash through crops on their migrations.

This leads us to our case study question- how can land use changes be managed so that both humans benefit and wildlife is conserved?

It all looks perfect from such great heights- up at the top of Mt. Olosoito. But get on the ground and the problems all feel larger than life.