617

LESSONS FOR PRIMATE RELATED COMMUNITY-BASED CONSERVATION

Shirley C. Strum, D.L. Manzolillo Nightingale, Aliya Bauer

Uaso Ngiro Baboon Project, Nairobi, Kenya

Presenter email: nightingale@africaonline.co.ke

The Uaso Ngiro Baboon Project, UNBP (formerly the Gilgil Baboon Project) became engaged
in community based conservation (CBC) in 1981, before most primate research projects
realized the need to involve local communities in conservation. During the last 26 years,
UNBP has had to adapt its CBC approach to fit changing circumstances. As a general rule,
people in Kenya have a deep dislike of baboons, and so changing their basic attitudes
towards these animals is a challenge. The Baboon Project has used a variety of approaches
that hope to ameliorate the costs of living with baboons by providing benefits. These have
included setting up and assisting primary schools, providing local employment, raising
awareness of wildlife and environmental conservation issues, linking the community to other
partners in conservation and development and, more recently, developing an ecotourism
enterprise and introducing a new team sport, cricket. We present the “lessons learned” about
the costs and benefits of using these incentives as reasons to conserve primates and
biodiversity. It is important to avoid the “Lords of Poverty” syndrome. It is also crucial to
develop multiple reasons to conserve, as relying on only one incentive leaves the process
vulnerable. By establishing bonds with the community on different levels, and for different
reasons (not all economic), we are able to foster cooperation and good will for the project and
the baboons, as well as help people increase their financial security.

Keywords: cost/benefit, incentives, financial security