In October 2005, following the surprising announcement that Amboseli National Park was to be de-gazetted (there is currently a court case attempting to stop the transfer) , the UNESCO Nairobi Office and the Kenya National Commission for UNESCO in consultation with KWS asked us to conduct an inventory and prepare an analysis of the Amboseli situation.

UNESCO, like the rest of us, was concerned that the status of Amboseli as a Biosphere Reserve might be compromised. We were asked, therefore, to compile an inventory of "what's on in the ecosystem" and to suggest actions required to ensure that Biosphere Reserve principles are applied its management so that the Amboseli National Park can become a significant contributor to conservation, development, education and research in the whole region. Amboseli could serve as a model for other biosphere reserves in similarly complex social, political and ecological settings.

The analysis was to include:

• an inventory of contemporary conservation-related activities in the ecosystem;
• specific suggestions for any changes to the zonation of Amboseli Biosphere Reserve required to better match the current reality;
• other actions needed to effectively fulfil the three biosphere reserve functions of conservation, development and logistic support at Amboseli;
• advice on possible organizational arrangements and financing mechanisms for a specific biosphere reserve coordination structure involving key stakeholders;
• preparation of one or more brief outlines for projects to implement the actions proposed.

Accordingly, three of us Soila Sayialel, ATE Trustee and AERP Project Manager, David Sitonik, one of our sponsored post-grads, and and Harvey Croze, ATE Trustee, undertook the task from November 2005 through March 2006.

The report,

Croze, H., Sayialel, S. and Sitonic, D. (2006). What’s on in the ecosystem: Amboseli as a Biosphere Reserve. A Compendium of Conservation and Management Activities in the Amboseli Ecosystem. 28 pp + annexes. Nairobi: ATE/AERP, UNESCO/MAB.

together with its annexes Is available here for download as a rather large Adobe pdf files. The file with the '080523' date stamp is a pdf of a PowerPoint presentation that ATE (Soila Sayialel and Harvey Croze) presented in a UNESCO meeting in Moshe, Tanzania, in May 2008.

[NB, the WikiProject has been removed by the WikiPolice, ostensibly for non-activity. They were strangely uncooperative when we asked for the source code to put the articles up in WikiPedia. Kind of makes one wonder about the openness of the Wiki process. Anyway, when we get the time, we shall put the text up on this site in editable form so colleagues can treat it as a home-grown WikiProject. Watch this space. Alternatively, anyone interested can visit the WikiProject that we have created for the main report and the annexes. You can access the text for quotations (please reference us, if you do), or, if you have knowledge of the ecosystem, join the project as a contributor/editor.]

_________
HC