The Greater Maasai Mara Ecosystem in Narok County is home to the iconic wildlife migration, a world-renowned tourist destination and a critical ecosystem for wildlife conservation.  With only 26 percent of the ecosystem under the government protection, community and privately-owned land adjacent to the Maasai Mara National Reserve is important for conservation efforts through the community conservancy model.  

The socio-economic benefits accruing from conservation for over 14,500 landowners and 100,000 people are numerous.  These include increased population and diversity of wildlife species, improved ecosystem integrity, increased income from wildlife-based tourism and other conservation enterprises, enhanced co-existence between wildlife, livestock, and people.  

Major threats to conservation in the ecosystem include loss of biodiversity, habitat degradation, and wildlife poaching and trafficking.  The conservancy movement in the Mara is faced with the following challenges: lack of a unified ecosystem-wide conservation approach, including ecosystem planning; limited resources, capacities and governance structures to fulfill the mandate of nascent and existing conservancies; inadequate institutional support for sustained growth of the Mara conservancies.