Kenya National Parks and Game Reserves

About 8% of the Kenya’s land mass is protected area for wildlife conservation. Protected areas are gazetted landscapes/seascapes that have been surveyed, demarcated and gazetted either as National Parks and/or National Reserves. In Kenya, Protected areas embrace various types of ecosystems namely: forests, wetlands, savannah, marine, arid and semi-arid. The protected areas comprise of 23 terrestrial National Parks, 28 terrestrial National Reserves, 4 marine National Parks, 6 marine National Reserves and 4 national sanctuaries. In addition KWS manages over a hundred field stations/ outposts outside the protected areas.

As noted above protected areas in Kenya are categorized either as parks or reserves. The distinction between the two categories is: in parks there is complete protection of natural resources and the only activities allowed are tourism and research. On the other hand in reserves, human activities are allowed under specific conditions. These activities are for instance fishing in marine reserves or firewood collection in terrestrial reserves. It is worth mentioning that a lot of Kenya’s wildlife lives outside Protected Areas, this is because most of the protected areas are not fully fenced, and hence wildlife moves in and out of these areas in search of pasture and water during certain periods within the year. When they move out of the protected areas, they interact with people on private and community land causing human wildlife conflict. This therefore requires that KWS embraces a strategic partnership with communities living in wildlife areas.