The Lewa Wildlife Conservancy, based at the foothills of Mount Kenya, works as a model and catalyst for the conservation of wildlife and its habitat. It does this through the protection and management of species, the initiation and support of community conservation and development programmes, and the education of neighbouring areas in the value of wildlife.
For the last three decades, Lewa’s innovative practices have resulted in thriving black rhino habitat and population, which in turn creates a robust ecosystem for a multitude of species including the endangered Grevy’s zebra, elephant, lion, cheetah, giraffe and more. Lewa envisions a future where people across Kenya value, protect and benefit from wildlife. This future depends on communities being able to derive their day-to-day livelihoods in ways that are compatible with thriving wildlife habitat. As a result, Lewa invests heavily in the livelihoods of its neighbours through programmes in education, healthcare, water, micro-enterprise, youth empowerment and more. As a catalyst and champion of this model that puts people at the centre of conservation, Lewa has influenced and supported the conservancy management for both private and community lands across northern Kenya.
The Lewa Wildlife Conservancy, based at the foothills of Mount Kenya, works as a model and catalyst for the conservation of wildlife and its habitat. It does this through the protection and management of species, the initiation and support of community conservation and development programmes, and the education of neighbouring areas in the value of wildlife. For the last three decades, Lewa’s innovative practices have resulted in a resilient ecosystem and habitat for secure wildlife populations. Lewa envisions a future where people across Kenya value, protect and benefit from wildlife. This future depends on communities being able to derive their day-to-day livelihoods in ways that are compatible with thriving wildlife habitat. As a result, Lewa invests heavily in the livelihoods of its neighbours through programmes in education, healthcare, water, micro-enterprise, youth empowerment and more. As a catalyst and champion of this model that puts people at the centre of conservation, Lewa has influenced and supported the conservancy management for both private and community lands across northern Kenya.
Major Site Values:
A thriving black rhino habitat and population, which in turn creates a robust ecosystem for a multitude of species including the endangered Grevy’s zebra, elephant, lion, cheetah, giraffe and more.
The mechanisms that have been put in place by Lewa are effective in delivering Lewa’s key objectives. Lewa has and continues to undertake significant investment towards improving the conditions of biodiversity and ecosystem values currently being secured in the Conservancy and also to mitigate the threats affecting the overall biodiversity values both from within and from outside. These biodiversity and ecosystem values have also gone a long way in being used as a platform to improve the livelihoods of the neighbouring communities. EAGL’s chair statement on Lewa GL application: “We [Kenyan EAGL] agree that Lewa application meets the requirements and can go forward to the next step of the Green List process which is the review by the independent reviewer.”
The Reviewer hereby confirms that all relevant requirements of the IUCN GLPCA User Manual v1.1 (Aug 2018) have been fulfilled. Very good and solid evidence was presented by the Site to support each indicator. Each EAGL member was requested to review parts of the questionnaire (which contains the indicators and PA evidence) and clarifications were requested from the PA management. The PA considered all relevant questions from the different EAGL members and responded to them in a satisfactory manner. Stakeholder consultation around Green List issues happened at various occasions throughout the process.
Minutes of EAGL meetings have been reviewed and the Reviewer also watched the recording of the EAGL 26th September meeting (as he could not attend) to ensure that the discussions were in line with the EAGL ToRs. Discussions were open and constructive. No EAGL conflicts of interested were declared with respect to the LEWA site. All EAGL members unanimously voted positively for the LEWA PA, after review of the various documents and responses from the PA management. The outcome of voting is documented in the 20/09/2018 and 26/09/2018 meeting report. The assessment process has been properly conducted and all aspects of the User Manual have been followed, except that no site visit was conducted during this relisting phase. This is justified as follows: A site visit was carried out during the pilot phase in 2014 and again in 2018. Both visits were conducted by IUCN staff. This is a deviation from the User Manual, which asks for the visit to be carried out by the EAGL. However, given that not only one but two visits were carried out, recognising that the EAGL members know the PA well, and acknowledging that IUCN and Assurance Provider communication with Green List participants did not specify that site visits carried out during the pilot phase would have to be repeated by EAGL members if they were carried out by someone else, the Reviewer accepts this deviation as conforming to the process rules. Following the outcome of the review and the process carried out by the EAGL in evaluating the PA, the Reviewer hereby confirms that all relevant requirements of the IUCN Green List User Manual v1.1 (Aug 2018) have been fulfilled, as outlined above. The Reviewer, therefore, recommends that LEWA Wildlife Conservancy, Kenya (S- 0032) be nominated for the IUCN Green List of Protected and Conserved Areas.
