For the next three years Legado is in partnership with Northern Rangelands Trust (NRT), an organization that has been working since the 1980s to support community-run conservancies across northern and coastal Kenya. 

Our focus together will be the Namunyak Conservancy, one of the first conservancies established in this region and home to the Mathews Range, a remote sky island valued for its unique biodiversity and the essential ecosystem services it provides to the Samburu pastoralists living in the region. 

Over the years, the Namunyak communities have had incredible success in transforming the way they manage their land and this has led to benefits for both wildlife and its people.

An example is the impressive reduction of elephant poaching inside the conservancy and the creation of mobile schools. As Burton Lenayokie, NRT’s Regional Director of the Samburu Conservancies, explained to us, a major challenge that remains is the encroachment of cattle grazing during the dry season into the Mathews forest and mitigating this pressure as climate change advances in the region.

Legado will work with Namunayk and NRT to understand how to solve these and other challenges inside a plan that includes and champions local communities’ priorities for a Thriving Future for both people and their land.

Photos from Burton Lenayokie flying over the Mathews Forest as part of NRT’s on-going biodiversity study of the Mathews landscape.