Community conservancies · Kenya · 207,586 hectares
Maasai Mara Conservancies
One ecosystem, 17,304 landowners holding it together.
Maasai Mara Conservancies: the numbers, sourced
As of July 2026.
- 207,586 hectares — of pooled family land held open across the conservancies. Maasai Mara Wildlife Conservancies Association, current.
- 17,304 landowners — individual Maasai title-holders leasing land into the conservancies. MMWCA, current.
- 24 conservancies — in the network, coordinated by MMWCA since its founding. MMWCA, 2013–present.
- ~1.5 million wildebeest — crossing the Serengeti–Mara ecosystem each year through the corridor the conservancies keep open. MMWCA; Mara Conservancy, annual.
What was lost at Maasai Mara Conservancies?
When the Mara's group ranches were subdivided into individual family titles, the great risk was fencing: thousands of separate plots, each one rational to fence, farm or sell — and a migration corridor that dies by a thousand fences. The wildebeest don't recognise title deeds.
What brought it back?
The answer was invented here: families pool their titled land into community conservancies and lease it collectively to a limited number of safari partners, in exchange for fixed monthly payments that arrive whether or not the tourists do. The Maasai Mara Wildlife Conservancies Association, formed in 2013, now knits together 24 conservancies at various stages — 207,586 hectares held open by 17,304 individual Maasai landowners (MMWCA).
What is it like now?
The conservancies double the effective size of the protected Mara ecosystem and carry lion densities comparable to the National Reserve itself (Mara Predator Conservation Programme). Every year, around 1.5 million wildebeest cross between the Serengeti and the Mara — through land that stays open because leases outbid fences.
Who does the work?
The landowners are the conservation force here: 17,304 families choosing, month after month, to keep the land whole. In Mara Naboisho alone, more than 500 families draw a reliable monthly income from the lease model (Saruni Basecamp; MMWCA).
How do you visit Maasai Mara Conservancies?
Stay inside a conservancy rather than outside the reserve gate — camps run by partners like Great Plains Conservation are the lease payments. Fewer vehicles, walking safaris, and your bed literally holds the corridor open.
Or have the whole journey designed for you — Cape to Nile designs custom African safaris.
Booking links may earn TravelConservation a commission at no cost to you. The visit is what funds the work.