Landscape change patterns in rangelands, land use and environmental diversity, Greater Amboseli Ecosystem 1988-1998

¹F. Atieno^*, ¹R.S. Reid & ²Njoka T.J.

¹ International Livestock Research Institute, Nairobi, Kenya.
² Department of Range Management, University of Nairobi.
(^* Corresponding author: e-mail f.atieno@cgiar.org)

Key words: biodiversity, conservation, rangelands, pastoralism, fragmentation, land use change, ecosystem, land tenure change

Abstract

For millenia, Greater Amboseli ecosystem has had a central role in the subsistence pastoralism and wildlife conservation by providing vast biological resources for pastoralists and their livestock; and habitat for wildlife. However, with the creation of Amboseli National Park and changes in land tenure systems, the recent human use of the ecosystem has intensified. This has shaped a pastoral landscape with livestock grazing, wildlife conservation, rain-fed and riverine crop cultivation and a variety of land use patterns. Natural woodlands, grassland and swamps with specific biological diversity that previously dominated the Amboseli area are today decreasing due to increase in cultivation – which is a result of changes in human land use patterns. This paper focuses on changes in landscape pattern and differences in landscape development in the Greater Amboseli Ecosystem, over the 1988-1998 period and seeks to interpret the changes in relation to different land tenure, land use and environmental factors. A set of remote sensing and GIS techniques together with ecological indices is used. During the ten-year period, changes in natural vegetation cover and cultivated fields were significant (p<0.05) with cultivated fields replacing 8% of natural vegetation. Cultivation increased along the mountain slopes, rivers and swamps — areas formerly used by pastoralists and wildlife for dry season grazing. The overall result is a change in landscape structure with increasing fragmentation, patch diversity and a reduction in complexity as number of patches increased from 157 in 1988 to 250 in1998. This study therefore, intends to contribute examples from human shaped ecosystems in rangelands where the fragmentation of natural habitats is addressed. The implications of changing land tenure and land use for biodiversity conservation in the area and the relationships to future sustainable pastoralism are likewise briefly discussed.