Conservation evolves in Kenya

HARMONY: MAASAI AND WILDLIFE CO-EXIST IN CONSERVANCIES

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OVERSIGHT. Giraffe in the Nashulai Maasai Conservancy.

At dawn in a village in Kenya's Maasai Mara wilderness, zebras rouse themselves and head away from the huts where they like to sleep as protection from lions.

Bernard Kirokor, 21, recounts watching an elephant give birth across from his village a few days earlier, showing a video of the mother protecting the newborn, its trunk poking up like a periscope to sniff for danger.

"The wildlife are our neighbours and we love them," he said, as the villagers milked the herd of cattle gathered around their huts.

The village is in the Nashulai conservancy, which prides itself on how the local Maasai community and their cattle live alongside the lions, elephants and giraffes for which the region is famous.

Community conservancies emerged in the 2000s to protect wildlife corridors, with locals pooling their individual plots and pulling down fences so animals could roam freely.

To make it pay, locals often leased their land to tourist companies and moved away.