Laikipia District

The 9,500km² Laikipia District is located to the north west of snow-capped Mount Kenya, in Kenya’s Rift Valley Province.  It neighbours Samburu Dirstict to the North, Isiolo and Meru to the East and Baringo to the West.

The Laikipia plains which stretch from the Great Rift Valley to the magnificent escarpments which descend into Kenya’s wild Northern rangelands, form part of the vast 50,000km² Ewaso ecosystem.  The plains are physically diverse and scenically spectacular, covered by open grasslands, basalt hills, lonely kopjes and dense cedar forests, fed by the Ewaso Nyiro and Ewaso Narok rivers.

Laikipia is home to ethnically diverse communities, including the Mukogodo Maasai, Kikuyu, and Meru, who live side by side with Europeans, Turkana, Samburu and Pokot.  Approximately 700,000 people reside in Laikipia.  Cattle-rearing on large commercial ranches and community owned rangelands has for many years been the life-blood of the community.  As so much of Laikipia has traditionally been used for low intensity grazing it has become a cherished haven for big game.

Many things differentiate Laikipia from the rest of Kenya, but possibly the most significant is how people from different cultures and backgrounds have come together to support and undertake conservation through their own organisation, the Laikipia Wildlife Forum (LWF).  Conservation in its broadest sense is carried out to support the management and sustainable use of natural resources as well as their protection and restoration.  In this way conservation supports the livelihoods of the people and wildlife.

Increasingly acknowledged as one of the most important areas for biodiversity in Kenya, Laikipia continues to record rising or stable wildlife numbers, in contrast to a declining trend throughout much of the country.  Wildlife population densities in the Laikipia region now rank second to the internationally renowned Maasai Mara ecosystem, whilst the diversity of large mammals is higher than in any other part of Kenya.  The Ewaso ecosystem is home to the second largest population of elephant in Kenya (6,000+) and Laikipia hosts the highest populations of endangered species, such as  black rhino (half of Kenya’s total population), Grevy’s zebra (70% of the world’s population), reticulated giraffe, and the only viable population of Lelwel hartebeest in the country, as well as Africa’s only expanding population of wild dog.  Laikipia’s biodiversity is globally unique, yet remarkably Laikipia is not a protected area, and Laikipia’s wildlife is entirely sustained by private and communal landowners.