Maa rights defender bags Cambridge feat

Nkamunu Patita, a Maasai woman wildlife activist and defender of women's rights in Kajiado, last month completed her second degree from Cambridge University, United Kingdom.

Patita is the co-founder of Earthacre Inc, a conservation leader and indigenous woman leader with a long history of wildlife activism in Maasailand.

On arrival to the country, a jovial Patita could not hide her joy as she went straight to her Facebook account to dedicate her achievement to her loving parents. 

“My beautiful Mama who never got a chance to get a formal education but believed in education and did everything and anything to support all of us,” Patita said. 

She said her mother believed in her girls and thanked her for fighting tooth and nail to protect them from negative cultural norms that would have stood in the way of their education.

“To my most amazing papa, whose spirit lives in us, the seed you planted is surely growing steadily. Your love, guidance, your belief in us lives on,” she said.

Patita first graduated from Daystar University with a degree in Integrated Community Development, and later, last week, she obtained her second degree, Master of Philosophy in Conservation Leadership from the University of Cambridge.

Patita lives in the community neighbouring Nairobi National Park, which was formed in the 1940s, when her ancestors foresaw the fast-growing development of Nairobi.

She is currently the programmes coordinator at the Wildlife Foundation and also a coordinator for Naretunoi Conservancy in Kitengela, which borders the park.

To preserve wildlife and the pastoralist way of life, her ancestors gave their precious land for the sole purpose of conserving wildlife habitat.

Nairobi National Park is located in Nairobi, the capital city of Kenya, and lies within the Athi-Kapiti Ecosystem. 

The ecosystem consists of vast open plains with a large and diverse range of species, such as endangered giraffes, rhinos, lions and plains zebras, baboons, and more than 400 species of birds.

Patita told the Star in an interview that the development and fencing of wildlife corridors is threatening the ecosystem.

It is that realisation that made her join activism and stand against upcoming plans for luxury hotels, eateries and residential houses around the Nairobi National Park.

She strongly believed that if developers were allowed to build hotels around the park, they would directly benefit from it at the expense of the local communities and generations to come. 

Such plans by individuals and the government, she said, ignore the indigenous Maasai knowledge of her ancestors through which wildlife has been conserved for thousands of years.

“Come to think of it, 65 per cent of Kenya’s wildlife exists outside the protected areas, and they are best conserved by these communities,” Patita said.

Sadly, she says, development has led to a drastic reduction of wildlife.

“One such case is we used to have more than 30,000 wildebeest migrations from the park in the 1960s. This has now been reduced to a mere 200. We must not let this happen to other species,” she said.

Patita believes that by keeping the Maasai community closer to the park, they will play a major role in protecting the wild animals.

“Fencing the park will lead to inbreeding of wildlife populations, cut off livestock from accessing nutrients from salt licks, and the eventual death of the ecosystem,” the activist said.

“Any damage to the park will cause cultural and psychological damage to my community, who call this place home and have very important cultural and social values attached to this land,” Patita said. 

She said the Maasai community has lived in the plains around the Nairobi National Park since time immemorial and ensured its conservation through cultural and social bonds, as well as traditional practices.

Patita, during the height of her activism in 2020, joined hands with others to force the government to stop further infrastructural development taking place inside the Nairobi National Park.

They also protested against the fencing of the park in the Sheep and Goat land on the border of Kajiado and Machakos counties to allow the community access to their cultural resources.

The group of activists led by Patita demanded that the Nairobi National Park and its wildlife corridor dispersal areas be declared a Unesco World Heritage site. 

The indigenous women’s human rights defender has been championing the rights of women especially pastoralists and those from marginalised communities.

Patita says the Nairobi National Park is facing threats from habitat loss, a decline in wildlife species and infrastructure development.

She says the park is also home to about 100 Maasai giraffes, currently on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's red list of threatened species.

Patita says the wildlife dispersal area could still be saved with proper incentives to landowners.

“The government has known about the problem with the dispersal area for the past 40 years,” she said. 

“They could have bought the land adjacent to the park when it was cheap and kept it open. If that was not possible, they could have shared the proceeds from the park with the community. 

“Our way of life has always been in tandem with wildlife conservation. If they [KWS] fence in or out part of this community, who will look after the wild animals outside the core conservation area?” 

The activist said the national government remains the greatest enemy of conservation in the Nairobi National Park.

She said the government, through the KWS, has tampered with the park’s boundary.

“This is happening even as communities are putting in efforts to conserve the park for future generations,” the conservationist said.

Patita said landowners in the area do not want any fencing.