Conflict between land for wildlife and land for farmers and pastoralists in Kenya has reached crisis level with rampant killing of lions and elephants among other types of important wildlife.
Kenya for example lost 289 elephants to poaching in 2011 and another 384 elephants in 2012. Lion is also one of the most endangered animals not only in Kenya but across Africa. Kenya has an estimated 1,800 lions, down from 2,800 in 2002. The country had 30,000 lions in the 1960s, KWS data reveals.
According to experts, while wildlife poaching is often related to the international illegal trade of products such as ivory, there are other social and local factors that also determine poaching levels.
These include complex interactions among human population growth, changes in socio-economic norms resulting in shifts in livestock composition and densities, inefficient government policies, changes in land tenure, and agricultural expansion.
Vagen said given the rapid decline in Africa's wildlife new technologies, like AfSIS can be repurposed to help land users, governments and conservation groups make better evidence-based decisions on land management as part of everyday policy and practice.
According to Vagen, a case study of Kenya's Laikipia district, one of the country's most diverse wildlife regions, sheds light on the interaction between soil and land health and human-wildlife conflict.
He said satellite images of the region show a high prevalence of soil erosion on land in Laikipia where the conflict has been rife.
By cross mapping this with other datasets that represent progressions in patterns of agriculture amongst pastoralists, shifting paths of migration taken by wildlife, river direction flow changes and land cover change, conservationists can map out areas where the probability of conflict is high.
This, Vagen said, means that communities can be more effectively educated on appropriate livestock numbers, settlement rotation and the management of shared grazing pastures.
Vagen said it was time that we work in partnership with conservationists to help both animals and people, adding that such incentive systems on a large scale cannot exist without the proper data or systems in place.
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