Land for life
Our Land for Life project supported community efforts to help people and wildlife thrive in Kenya and Tanzania.
The project
Our Land for Life project formed part of WWF’s wider work in southern Kenya and northern Tanzania, from Lake Victoria to the Indian ocean.
The Maasai people have lived in this region alongside wildlife like elephants and lions for centuries. But the land around them is changing because of privatisation, growing numbers of people, unsustainable land management, and expanding farmlands.
Fences and roads are cutting across once-connected landscapes in southern Kenya and northern Tanzania. The degradation and loss of grasslands, forests and freshwater habitats have also brought new problems. With fewer resources to go around, there’s more contact between people and wild animals – which doesn’t always end well.
On top of a challenging landscape, a lot of people live in poverty in this region. Climate change has made lives even more difficult with severe droughts happening more often. Many people face food and water shortages. In the struggle to earn a living, some people have taken part in unsustainable activities like poaching wild animals, overgrazing and cutting down trees for fuel to support themselves.
That’s where our Land for Life project came in, to help address these challenges and support people and wildlife in a changing world.
Land for Life appeal
Thank you to everyone who supported our UK Aid Match appeal, which ran from 2 November 2020 to 1 February 2021 and allowed your donations to have double the impact.
Together we raised £4.76 million during the appeal, including £2 million from the UK government. Donations for the Land for Life project supported vital community efforts to help people and wildlife coexist and thrive in Kenya and Tanzania. Funds also supported WWF’s wider conservation work around the world.
How did Land for Life help?
Through our Land for Life project, we’ve helped to: better the wellbeing of Maasai communities in this part of east Africa, improve how people and wild animals live side by side, and support community-led efforts to better manage the land.
Land for Life has laid the groundwork for lasting change. It has empowered communities to restore habitats, reduce human-wildlife conflict, and strengthen sustainable livelihoods. This in turn helps protect precious ecosystems and wildlife corridors – land that forms part of a pathway used by animals to get from A to B – for generations to come.
The project was led by WWF-UK, WWF-Kenya and WWF-Tanzania in collaboration with local communities, together with African People & Wildlife and the South Rift Association of Land Owners (SORALO) who have worked in the region for many years.
By merging the wisdom of generations with modern know-how, the project has helped local people to sustainably manage and protect nature in a way that benefits both them and wildlife.
-
© Greg Armfield / WWF-UKMore Supporting Human-Wildlife Coexistence Officers
Carnivores and large animals like elephants can threaten Maasai people’s livelihoods by damaging crops and livestock. This brings communities into conflict with these animals, and retaliatory killings put both wildlife and people in danger. As natural habitats are lost, and longer, more severe droughts threaten the landscape, wild animals are more likely to come face to face with communities and make issues worse.
A goal of Land for Life was to help stop humans and wild animals clashing. With support from the project, African People & Wildlife’s (APW) Human-Wildlife Coexistence Officers are doing just that.
APW’s Coexistence team provides a rapid response to human-wildlife conflict events across 20 different rural communities. The team use online tools to report livestock attacks, large carnivore sightings, and requests to build Living Walls. APW also work closely with local communities. The Coexistence Officers were born and raised where they work in northern Tanzania, so they understand the unique challenges faced by local people.
In Tanzania, the incredible work of the local officers stopped an estimated $1,360,635 worth of livestock from being hunted by predators. In Kenya, a similar service is provided by ‘ilaretok’ (livestock guardians), led by our partner South Rift Association of Land Owners (SORALO).
During the project, reports of carnivores attacking livestock while they graze in fields dropped from 516 incidents in 2022, to just 300 in 2024. At the same time, attempted retaliatory killings of carnivores went from 19 in 2022, to only 3 in 2024. These numbers tell us that the project has improved people’s tolerance of wildlife and helped the way people and wildlife live together.
-
© Greg Armfield / WWF-UKMore Building living walls to protect livestock from wildlife
Many Maasai depend on livestock for their livelihoods. However, their cows, goats and sheep are often attacked by lions, hyaena and other carnivores. This is because there isn’t much natural prey available and livestock are easy targets.
To reduce this type of human-wildlife conflict African People & Wildlife (APW), with support from the Land for Life project, have been partnering with communities to build Living Walls. These Living Walls act as environmentally friendly pens that keep livestock safe. They are built using Commiphora trees (or similar), which are planted in a circle around the outside of a livestock enclosure and secured with a chain-link fence. Over time the trees continue to grow, adding height to the wall and better protecting the livestock inside.
To date, 262 new Living Walls have helped benefit an estimated 3,329 people and kept nearly 38,000 livestock animals safe every night. Keeping animals safe isn’t the only advantage. Nearly 30,000 trees have been planted to build the Living Walls, benefiting the local environment.
-
© Greg Armfield / WWF-UKMore Keeping rangelands healthy
Rangelands are key for wildlife and livestock. As part of the Land for Life project, we have worked with local communities to help them manage grazing lands. Communities have removed invasive plants, restored water springs, and changed when and how livestock graze on certain areas of land. By combining traditional knowledge with modern restoration methods, the quality of land improves. This helps to reduce human–wildlife conflict, strengthens livelihoods, betters wellbeing and increases people’s ability to live side by side with wildlife.
Restoring these rangelands is a large undertaking that is only made possible by working with hundreds of local community members, who play an active role in the landscape’s conservation.
-
© naturepl.com / Anup Shah / WWFMore Addressing human-wildlife conflict hotspots
Whilst restoring rangelands in Kenya, the Land for Life project worked with over 120 community members to help clear invasive thorny trees called Prosopis juliflora. The trees were removed by hand along major footpaths and around water points over the course of 8 days. As a result, 24km of road and footpaths were cleared. By clearing the tress, 5182 community members were able to use the areas to safely get to schools, homesteads, grazing areas and urban centres.
With less risk of coming face to face with elephants and buffalo, wildlife attacks have fallen. Clear, open space has meant people can spot elephants and other animals at distance and avoid them. Now, both the community and the elephants can share the water hole without either coming to harm. With water at a premium in Kenya, this is a win for both people and wildlife.
-
© Juozas Cernius / WWF-UKMore Supporting sustainable livelihoods
During the Land for Life project, communities were supported to find other sustainable ways to generate income through beekeeping, beadwork, poultry and sunflower farming and more. As well, local people were supported to develop their skills in financial literacy, marketing, and value chain development. In total, 6,931 men and women were helped to find extra ways to make a living and improve their livelihoods and financial wellbeing. The project has also supported several employment opportunities for both men and women including job roles like community scouts, human wildlife conflict officers and ilaretok (helpers). The Maasai still rely on their livestock for a living, but a second way to make money gives people a backup. It helps people afford food all year round and be better prepared for droughts when they happen.
-
© Greg Armfield / WWF-UKMore Improving transboundary collaboration
Land for Life has worked across the borders of Kenya and Tanzania. The project has strengthened the way countries work together and look after ecosystems by setting up meetings with partners, communities and stakeholders across the border. This collaboration has led to important changes in policy on rangeland management, water governance and human-wildlife coexistence – all to help benefit the people and wildlife living in this landscape. Border patrols and security meetings have also shared intelligence across the border and have helped deter environmental crime.
-
© Greg Armfield / WWF-UKMore Protecting Loita forest
The Loita Forest in Kenya provides water, fuelwood, pasture and medicines for over 20,000 people. Despite its cultural and environmental importance, it was once vulnerable to poor land management, habitat loss, and being used for other purposes. To help protect and preserve this special area, the Land for Life project helped to bring together local leaders and governments to agree that the forest should become community-managed land. This breakthrough means there is now a shared promise to safeguard the forest and without this milestone, parts of it would likely have been lost. The Maasai people have been protecting this forest for generations, so it is vital they are at the forefront of its conservation in the future.
-
© Greg Armfield / WWF-UKMore Safeguarding community wellbeing
Central to the Land for Life project is the local communities in Kenya and Tanzania where the project took place. It was key to understand the challenges local people faced when it came to land management, resources, livelihoods and the struggle of living with wild animals in a changing landscape. To make sure the project was on track in supporting local people, a household wellbeing survey was run at the beginning of the project and was conducted annually. This helped us understand how people were feeling throughout the project and if there were positive impacts on people’s wellbeing. To run the survey, South Rift Association of Land Owners (SORALO) and African People & Wildlife (APW) recruited people from local communities and provided training on survey protocols, and the use of a mobile app to gather data.
/
Where have we been working?
Stretching between the national parks of the Mara-Serengeti and Amboseli-Kilimanjaro are vast community lands that provide vital habitat and movement routes for wildlife known as wildlife corridors. Our Land for Life project covered around 8,890 km² of these precious landscapes, including the Loita forest in Kenya and Lake Natron landscape in Tanzania. These areas include grassland savannahs, dense forests and freshwater systems, which are critical for both people and wildlife.
The project site has many important wildlife corridors, essential for species such as elephants, lions, leopards, cheetah, African wild dog and wildebeest to move across this landscape, following traditional migration routes and dispersal patterns.
Over the past three years, the Land for Life project has achieved so much — laying strong foundations for lasting change. Thanks to significant investment and dedication, real progress has been made. But there’s still more to do to protect this remarkable region — for the wildlife that depends on it, and for the people who call it home.
- Click image to enlarge
Adopt an elephant
Adopt an elephant
Your adoption will help protect elephant habitats and will help fund our vital work around the world. When you choose an animal adoption, you are supporting both your chosen animal as well as wider work to help bring our world back to life.