Pioneering conservancies struggle to save Kenya's wildlife jewel

0 Comments | AFP, August, 2008

MAASAI MARA, Kenya (AFP) — Investors and conservationists have dreamt up an innovative business plan to save Kenya's iconic Maasai Mara, a wildlife haven threatened by over-grazing, farming and mass tourism.

Around August each year, swarms of wildebeests come stampeding from neighbouring Tanzania's Serengeti plains to find pasture in the Maasai Mara, in a great migration recently dubbed the world's "eighth wonder".

"Twelve years ago, there were 1.2 million wildebeests, last year we had only 300,000. If nothing is done, it could put pay to the migration forever," says Ron Beaton, a leading Kenyan conservationist.

Having lived in the Maasai Mara for the past 34 years, farming wheat before launching a high-end lodge, Ron Beaton knows better than most the...