The participatory rural appraisal (PRA) was done in Kenya in 2013, in the area of Baringo lake, on behalf of the consulting firm ELIANTE, WWF Italy and the Italian NGO MANITESE. I carried on the mission as part of a development cooperation project, in the frame of the Italian de-centralized cooperation.
Main goal was conducting an assessment of the natural resources together with the of the communities, with the double target of a conservation action and of a way to generate income trough a community based tourism.
The work started by the involvement of local authorities, considered both a key facilitating informant and an actor to be kept informed. It was divided in two main areas.
- The first period was committed to training the community and raising awareness for nature conservation and the values of biodiversity, considered as the capital of an ecosystem and necessary to create resilience and a direct economic source. After a capacity building phase, the work developed a participatory data collection (biodiversity mapping at village level).
- Some fieldwork, mainly based on long walk in the bush, under the expert guide of community leaders provided the data collection with a check on reliability. Some photo-traps were posed on the ground, in order to detect wildlife signs. Being the area largely unprotected, large mammals were mainly used as an indicator of wilderness at a medium scale (40X20 Km), because more recognizable by hunters, because very sensitive to the level anthropization and because of their potential importance for developing tourism.
Main output was the identification of a key wildlife corridor on the elevated areas close to the Baringo plains, connecting a trilateral system composed by a national park, a community managed area and a private farm.
Field collected data suggested a pattern coherent with the participatory data collection. The work well identified, trough valuing community experience, ecological dynamics at large scale in the area
