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The first specific objective of this study was to identify the outcomes of the Olgulului Predator Consolation Scheme. The findings indicated that the predator consolation scheme resulted to recovery of lost livelihood in terms of livestock, reduced killing of predators reduced conflicts, reduced livestock predation due to improved livestock husbandry through fencing and proper herding, improved relations between community and KWS officials, improved socio-economic livelihoods and that all stakeholders in the conservation business have benefited due to enhanced co-existence between human and wildlife. In terms of the negative outcomes of the scheme, it was established that payment is not according to market prices, conditional, delayed payment, unpaid claims, slow response, false claims and increased predation was also

mentioned as a negative outcome of the Olgulului predator consolation scheme.

5.2.1.1 Olgulului Predator Consolation Scheme rules and Procedures Findings have shown that Predator consolation scheme rules and procedures are known, however, respondents indicated that the conditions are bothersome and not fairly implemented. It’s one thing to have rules, but quite another to keep or implement them said a key informant … “a lot of people like predator consolation scheme and the structure is good, it is a way of setting themselves

to a level of honesty, there is a fine that is high if you lie”. Yet, MPT (Maasai

Preservation Trust) is privy to some of the tricks plying around the rules and

comments that “is to not 100% clean… we get ripped off, there are invalid

claims, collusion, and costs of doing businesses.

This may be in agreement with previous studies which have shown that the rules and regulations are not well known or understood or are ignored by many of who use or have potential to use the project or they are not negotiated with the landowners. There appear to be many reasons for the landowners’ ignorance or resistance to the rules.

When interviewed a key informant said “….those [KWS personnel and Wazungu] have taken our fertile land as parks for wildlife and those wildlife

are killing our people, eating our livestock and damaging our crops…..they

wildlife, and there so many people and they all want to have a share of this

benefits …now how can a pocket that has holes get filled up? It’s hard”. (Elder, OGR 2014)

Through key informant interview a PCS administrator indicated that on any given PCS payout collection, there were always women present to collect payouts, either for their own livestock loss or as stand-inns for male relatives. Thus despite Maasai customs, some women particularly widows and stand-ins for their husbands and or son who live or work elsewhere, every female subject that participated in this study was given permission by her husband or son to do so.

In verification, the predator consolation scheme states that the “claim of loss must be reported within 24 hours of its loss”, and it is not, the claim will not be considered for consolation payment. Many respondents indicated that they call verification officers for verification within the stated time but the verification officers arrive or fail to arrive or arrive late that the claim exceeded the verification time limit and became invalid. Much of the respondents said there are no enough verification officers available to the community at the time of predation. Some other respondents explained that the weather conditions and impassable roads prevented the verification officers from getting the kill sit on time; this was in agreement with Nyhus (2003b) statement that the problem of unverified loss remains a critical challenge for many compensation schemes. However, the 2 types of unverified loss seen in the predator consolation scheme as inadequate verification officers and

weather conditions can be addressed and largely remedied in order to avoid such unverified loss. To minimize such instances, the Predator consolation might consider stationing verification officers on different parts of the ranch so that travel time was lessened and weather conditions and impassable roads avoided. It seems unfair that the claimant should forfeit payment due to issues such as bad weather and unverified cases. From the focus group discussion … several ways were identified of circumventing procedures and rules in the scheme as explained by project administrator such as multiple claims for consolation of the same carcass. To curb this, the scheme administrators requires the verifying officer to write the GPS details which includes date, time and location of the carcass on a piece of paper , place it on the dead carcass and take a picture as evidence of death. Some carcass could be claimed by more than one claimant. For example, after the verifying officers had left the site of predation, the same carcass would be transported to another site and someone else would claim consolation for it. In some instances… the scouts and verifying officers would collude with claimants to make false claims. In 2009, the Maasai Preservation trust fired several verifying officers and predator scouts who were involved the fraud and consolation payment were frozen/suspended for two months period on the affected zone…..collusion often take the form of a wrong stock claimed ….a claim of cow killed instead of a goat, sheep or donkey… so that the claimant could get more payment. Sometimes the verifying officers would increase the number of claims or log in more deaths than those that actually occurred. Sometimes the group ranch members issue threats to honest verifying officers so that they

could be subdued to false claims. Upon realizing such, the scheme financiers’ deals with such threats by freezing consolation for the whole zones when this occurs until the involved are exposed as per the agreement.

5.2.1.2 Penalties

The intended purpose of penalties was to discourage livestock owners and herders from practicing inadequate husbandry methods. Predator consolation scheme statistic shows that the number of paid claims with penalties for lost livestock and bad boma outweighed those issued without penalties by almost 2 to 1 in 2008. Payment for unattended stock in 2008 alone consumed more than 1.2m kshs as stated by the park warden (Cheptei personal communication). Many respondents indicated the penalties were not fair because the money paid after the penalty was not enough to replace the livestock lost to predators. Fourli (1999) suggests that high payment prices may lessen defensive action and allowing the livestock to be taken by predators more profitable, than if the livestock were sold at market rate.

Wagner et al (1997), suggests that partial payments may actually be more frustrating to residents than no payment because of the perception that the organization accepts responsibility for the wildlife damage which they implement. This may be the case with OGR “it should not be that some are paid full amount or half the amount; as long as it is killed by a wild predator,

we should be paid the full amount because, if there were no carnivores the livestock could have not been killed.

The sustainability of the scheme could be enhance and the cost reduced if preventive measures are deployed such as improving livestock husbandry meaning proper herding and improved boma constructions. Adult herding during the day and good bomas reinforced with modern fences reinforced by wire mesh and electricity will reduce cases of predation hence reduction in financial implications. This was in agreement with Ogada et al, 2003 statement that good boma and herding has been associated with lower level of depredation by large carnivores and the single low-level solutions suggested can make substantial contribution towards reducing conflicts with predators. 5.2.1.3 Market Value Payment

Many respondents indicated the payment prices not based on market price of the stocks, with or without penalties. Predator consolation scheme administrators in the key informant interview argued defending the current payment rate and said that payments prices are consolation fees not compensation and were not meant to march market value of stock. Request have been made by predator consolation schemes administrators for information regards livestock price assessment; when the assessment was made (i.e. over what time period, was the market price determined by rainfall/ drought conditions, age, and types of livestock). Such information would very likely shed light on compensation prices; however, thus far, this information has not been recorded. This findings was similar to those of (Montag and

Patterson, 2001) who recommended that to better the compensation, updates on market price lists at regular interval to get a price that was closer to the real cost endured by livestock owners.

5.2.1.4 Timely payout period

Nyhus et al., 2003 suggested that timely payment can also help the victims to get over their anger and reduce the incentives to retaliate against the animals that caused the damage. According to Montag and Patterson (2001), many, if not most, consolation schemes make payment within 2 to 4 months. On the other end of spectrum, some schemes take as long as 16 months to make payment. The payments period for the Olgulului predator consolation scheme as indicated by the respondents is three (3) months, this indicate that claimants wait on average, only one month for consolation payouts. Despite of this, just under half of the subjects felt that three months pay period was unfair and made claimants wait too long for consolation. Some respondents, in fact, proposed that payments should be made immediately following verification. When compared to suggestions given by Montag and Patterson (2001) on compensation payout timeframe worldwide, the Olgulului Predator Consolation Scheme clearly fell within the “timely payment” category. It was unlikely that Olgulului Group ranch residents are aware of the global payout recommendations for global compensation schemes. The Olgulului Predator Consolation Scheme administrators might consider using the information to put payment timeframe period into perspective and this might change the local people mindset about the fairness of the consolation scheme payment period if they knew how long some communities must wait for consolation payment.

Such information, as well as an explanation of why the immediate payouts are not made should be included in the future education efforts.

5.1.2.5 Funding

Funding was one of the major challenges of any consolation scheme. (Nyhus et al. 2003b) advises that a compensation schemes must have a sustained source of sufficient funding which was capable of responding to variation in damage overtime caused by wild predators.

It was criticized from beginning an irreversible process of financing local people in the hope of attaining conservation, therefore making it highly contingent on continuous financing, however, has been highly elusive. There are well- placed fears that now that the local people has been indoctrinated into “a carrot- and – stick” way of life, the drying up of funds would eventually lead to atrocious animosity against wildlife. Critics on sustainability was exacerbated by land of transparency of source and pool of Predator consolation funds, a problem that also found in a joint study by KWS and AWF, both being MPT’s partners: this study could not obtain much data on funds invested into the scheme. (Kenana and Mwinzi, 2010:31). The challenges of maintaining continuous funding was not unique to PCF but has been to be one of the greatest challenges of the scheme especially in developing countries. PCF requires consistent and infinite funding that is often not taken into consideration by biodiversity financing mechanism (Wunder, 2005 and Pagiola, 2003). MPT, KWS and AWF are deliberating on three solutions to tackle the issue of sustainability; increase of the contribution by

the local community; contribution by tour operators in the Amboseli ecosystem and public funding by the government of Kenya. AWF considers high contributions by local community a better funding mechanism in terms of sustainability hence recommending reversal of the current contribution mode to 70% and donors to contribute 30% of total funding. However, AWF acknowledges that this far-fetched idea- highly unlikely to happen (interview). Underlying this suggestion, however, is the strange idea that the community which was already incurring unbearable losses by co-existing with wildlife should at the same time be greatest funders of their losses. At the same time, MPT hopes that compensation for property losses would be included in the pending wildlife bill and make the government of Kenya the main financier. In the study area, funding had proven to be an issue for the Olgulului predator consolation scheme. Most of the respondents interviewed did not know or were misinformed about the source of funding for the existing scheme. Many thought the scheme was funded by government or KWS or the money comes from tourist visiting their ranch to view wild animals. From the key informant interview, the group ranch officials were aware of the source of funding but had not adequately communicated to the members. Communication strategy on the source of funding, community contribution and responsibility would help the members understand how the scheme was working and address the issue of funding.

5.2.2 Effectiveness of the scheme in minimizing human-predator