ASAUK 2018

Isiolo and Laikipia counties are at the centre of Kenya’s development - Vision 2030- set to open up the former “Northern Frontier District”. The counties will host part of Lamu Port-South Sudan-Ethiopia Transport (LAPSSET) corridor, and other developments. Although under-developed however, the two counties are not an empty canvas; there are pastoralists and other land users, and arrangements for the shared use of land and resource. However, there are also perennial resource-based conflicts and a weak state presence; so new developments are likely to bring land disputes and security challenges. With the expansion of neo-liberal economic systems and exploitation of natural resources in these counties, legitimacy and power are likely to be worked out in violent ways. This work examines the related issue of conservancies which are proliferating in the same areas and expanding new notions of security and land rights. Conservancies are areas demarcated for land and livestock management, conservation, ecotourism and other livelihood projects. However, the preoccupation with expected social economic and ecological benefits of conservancies tends to neglect other unexpected consequences, such as the curtailing of pastoral mobility in a fragile ecosystem and the emergence of deadly intercommunal conflicts as have already been witnessed in Laikipia. Conservancies are also increasingly becoming a security strategy; the Kenya state has allowed the allocation of National Police Reservists (NPRs) – community members armed by the state – to protect conservancies against poaching and encroachment, but this has also become a means by which arms are acquired by communities with which they may cement their land claims. Conservancies are a compelling issue as a new land-use and security model in frontier areas, whose dynamics and repercussions will be further examined in the context of other new developments in the counties.