Conservancies: A Demonstrable Local-Level Action for the Sustainable Development Goals in an African Indigenous Frontier

Land-use governance is critical for contributions to the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as it shapes a wide range of environmental, social, and economic outcomes. Community conservancies have proliferated across rangelands in various African countries over the past three decades, exemplifying innovative arrangements of land- and resource-use governance. By 2023, Kenya had established 230 conservancies, covering 9.04 million hectares and accounting for 16% of the country’s total land area, highlighting the growing importance of community-led land stewardship. The conservancies seek to enhance both livelihoods and biodiversity, while strengthening local cultures, values and institutions. They are expected to address multiple cross-cutting social–ecological challenges, as envisioned by the SDGs. This paper aims to assess the effectiveness and capacity of conservancies to address relevant SDG targets, using case studies from the Maasai Mara region in Kenya. This is relevant as local interventions such as conservancies have been addressing issues related to global goals in diverse and innovative ways for a long time, and interest is increasing in local-level implementation amid urgent need for accelerated action. Multiple data sources were used, entailing primary data from in-depth interviews, a focus group discussion and documents review, as well as secondary data collated from a review of primary and grey literature. Analysis considered how many SDG targets were addressed, and the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of leveraging conservancies to align their development objectives with the SDGs. The results show that conservancies are contributing to addressing crucial social–ecological challenges corresponding with specific SDG targets related to advancing human well-being, enhancing environmental and biodiversity conservation, and climate change mitigation and adaptation. However, conservancies are susceptible to structural and systemic barriers which encumber inclusive participation, raising social justice concerns. The findings offer valuable insights for policy and practical recommendations.