Land Allocation in Taita Taveta County: Call for Equity and Action
Taita Taveta County Headquarters. IPhoto/ Courtesy)
By Andrew Mwangura
Email, thecoastnewspaper@gmail.com
Taita Taveta County, spanning 17,000 km² (approximately 4.2 million acres), grapples with a profound land allocation crisis that raises critical questions about fairness.
Tsavo National Park occupies 62% of the county—roughly 2.6 million acres—while ranches and conservancies claim another 1.3 million acres.
This leaves a mere 500,000 acres for over 350,000 residents and public institutions, creating an inequitable distribution that stifles development, fuels poverty, and marginalises locals.
The issue is not the value of conservation but whether the current land model prioritizes the common good or perpetuates exclusion.
Tsavo National Park, a biodiversity gem and tourism driver, generates significant revenue for Kenya. However, its dominance severely restricts land for agriculture, housing, and public infrastructure.
Ranches and conservancies, often controlled by private entities, further limit access, with benefits rarely reaching ordinary residents.
This scarcity intensifies land disputes, constrains farming—a primary livelihood—and forces youth to migrate, draining the county’s potential.
Public institutions, cramped for space, struggle to deliver services. Locals feel like outsiders on their ancestral land, while external stakeholders profit from conservation and tourism.
Comparing Taita Taveta’s land policies to other Kenyan counties underscores the disparity. In Narok County, the Maasai Mara’s community-based conservancies enable locals to co-manage land and share tourism revenue, balancing conservation with livelihoods.
In Laikipia County, community ranches integrate pastoralism with eco-tourism, empowering residents.
Taita Taveta’s top-down approach, with minimal community involvement, lags behind, highlighting the need for reform. This imbalance reflects flaws in Kenya’s land management, where conservation often overshadows human needs.
The Government of Kenya must act decisively. It should conduct a transparent land audit to map usage and reallocate underutilized ranch or conservancy land for community use.
Piloting community-based conservation, like Narok’s model, would allow locals to co-manage parts of Tsavo or adjacent conservancies, sharing tourism dividends.
Investing in high-yield farming techniques, such as drip irrigation, can maximize productivity on the 500,000 acres available, ensuring food security.
Enforcing public participation in land-use decisions will curb elite capture and build trust.
The Taita Taveta County government must advocate for its residents. It should develop a participatory land-use plan, allocating space for housing, agriculture, and infrastructure while supporting conservation.
Establishing community-led eco-tourism ventures, like small-scale lodges or guiding services, can reduce reliance on land-intensive livelihoods. Partnering with agricultural experts to provide farmers with seeds, tools, and training will boost productivity.
Regular community forums will ensure policies reflect local needs.
To the Taita Taveta political class in the diaspora, leverage your influence to lobby for national policy reforms, amplifying the county’s land challenges in parliament.
Facilitate partnerships with NGOs to fund local cooperatives or youth training programs in eco-tourism and agriculture, bridging local needs with national resources.
To academia giants from Taita Taveta based in Nairobi, Mombasa, and the diaspora, your expertise is vital. Conduct research on sustainable land-use models, drawing lessons from Narok and Laikipia, to inform policy.
Develop training programs on community-based conservation and high-yield farming, partnering with local institutions to build capacity.
Advocate for evidence-based policies by publishing findings and engaging policymakers. Diaspora academics can secure funding from international networks for pilot projects, such as eco-tourism cooperatives or agricultural innovation hubs, ensuring Taita Taveta’s challenges gain global attention.
In conclusion, Taita Taveta’s land crisis demands urgent, collective action to balance conservation with human development.
By implementing actionable measures—land audits, community-based conservation, and high-yield farming—while learning from counties like Narok and Laikipia, the national and county governments can ensure equitable land use.
The political class and academia giants from Taita Taveta, whether in Nairobi, Mombasa, or the diaspora, must amplify these efforts, advocating for and supporting a future where the county’s 350,000 residents are empowered stewards of their land, sharing in its ecological and economic wealth.
The author is a policy analyst specializing in maritime governance and blue economy development.
