372 F. Broekhuis et al.
live alongside predators compared to those who did not lease land to a conservancy. This is probably because of the multitude of benefits offered to conservancy members (Bedelian, 2014; Courtney, 2015). However, this was not con- sistent across the conservancies examined. Conservancies can provide important resources for livestock in terms of grass, water and salt licks, especially during the dry season, but prohibiting access to these resources can create animos- ity (Bedelian & Ogutu, 2017). For example, Hazzah et al. (2013) found that restricted access to resources during the dry season was linked to both negative attitudes and behav- ioural intentions towards lions. As access to resources differ per conservancy, this could reflect the differences in atti- tudes towards predators between the different conservancy members. In addition, animosity could be increased when herders are fined for grazing in areas or during times when access is prohibited (Bedelian & Ogutu, 2017). Similarly, the presence of compensation (through an insur- ance scheme that members pay into) and the inclusion of landowners in the decision-making process varied across the wildlife areas. This inclusion could be an important fac- tor to consider, especially as a higher number of respon- dents who felt that the predators belonged to the community, rather than the authorities, thought that peo- ple, livestock and predators should coexist. Inclusion, through a sense of ownership and community engagement, is an important part of effective conservation strategies (Madden & McQuinn, 2014) and our results suggest that conservation politics are likely to influence people’s atti- tudes. We propose that once management plans are made public, the factors influencing these differences are explored, as this would aid future management and coexistence strategies. We focused our survey on men as Maasai men own
the land and livestock and are often associated with the killing of predators, especially lions (e.g. Goldman et al., 2013). However, recent research has shown that women value benefits, such as conservancy membership, differently to men (Keane et al., 2016) and that women may be less tolerant towards predators than men (e.g. Carter & Allendorf, 2016; Harvey et al., 2017). We would therefore advise that women are included in fu- ture surveys relating to attitudes and behavioural inten- tions towards predators. In addition, we measured attitude and behavioural intentions as a dichotomous re- sponse but it is likely that both attitudes and behavioural intentions lie on a continuous scale (Treves, 2012). By as- sessing attitudes and behavioural response on a continu- ous scale, the strength of these could be measured (Harvey et al., 2017; Hazzah et al., 2017). It is encouraging that more than half of the respon-
dents thought that people, livestock and predators should coexist, especially as exclusion strategies, such as fencing of Africa’s wildlife areas (Packer et al., 2013a), are
increasingly advocated. However, fencing of an ecosys- tem such as the Maasai Mara, where free movement is critical for the access of transient resources would be det- rimental to both wildlife and people (Notenbaert et al., 2012). As predator populations are negatively impacted by edge effects (Loveridge et al., 2010), the overall will- ingness of respondents to coexist with predators bodes well for their conservation. However, a relatively large proportion of respondents (42.48%) felt that people, live- stock and predators should not coexist. In the long term, this could have an impact on predator populations as people may wish to exclude predators from community land that has not been set aside for wildlife-based activ- ities. Our results suggest that focusing on the benefits, rather than the costs, associated with predators, could be a more effective strategy to foster attitudes favouring coexistence. In addition, promoting a sense of ownership of predators may enhance a willingness to coexist. We acknowledge that more work is needed to understand better the complexities of coexistence within this land- scape. We propose that future research is conducted within a Theory of Planned Behaviour framework by in- cluding factors such as subjective norms and perceived behavioural control (Ajzen, 1991) and we hope that our findings will provide a starting point.
Acknowledgements We thank the National Council for Science and Technology, Narok County Government, the Maasai Mara Wildlife Conservancies Association and the community for permis- sion to carry out this study, Basecamp Foundation Kenya for providing funding to allow us to conduct the interviews, and the African Wildlife Foundation for funding the barazas (local meetings) in which the re- sults were presented and discussed with the community. Additional funding was provided by WWF and through donations to the Kenya Wildlife Trust.We thank Francis Sopia for feedback on the question- naire and for fruitful discussions, Clevers Ntokoiwuan, Njapit Pariken, Miton Taki, Pesi Saning’o, Daniel Momposhi, Charles Nkoitoi, Noosaron Simoren, Wilson Rotiken, Danson Kaelo and David Naurori for conducting the interviews, the respondents for volunteer- ing their time, Fiona Tande for assisting with data entry, and the re- viewers for their valuable critiques.
Author contributions Conceived and designed the study: FB, MK, DKS and NBE. Trained the interviewers: MK and DKS. Supervised data collection: FB, MK and DKS. Informal analysis: MK and DKS. Formal analysis: FB and NBE. Data validation: FB and MK. Wrote the paper: FB and NBE. Revised and edited the paper: MK and DKS.
Conflicts of interest None.
Ethical standards Permissions to conduct the questionnaire survey were granted by the National Council for Science and Technology (Permit No.: NACOSTI/P/15/9772/5795), Narok County Government, the Maasai Mara Wildlife Conservancies Association and the community.
Oryx, 2020, 54(3), 366–374 © 2018 Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605318000091
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