What Drives Compliance with Rules in Community-Based Conservation? Lessons from Maasai Mara, Kenya.

Environmental conservation efforts on different scales, from species to ecosystems, are mostly centered on regulating human behaviours (activities) through rules governing resource access and use. However, local resource users do not always respond positively to rules. Non-compliance with conservation rules renders them ineffective, which undermines the achievement of ecological and development goals in environmental management. Therefore the factors that determine compliance with conservation rules require thorough consideration in environmental conservation planning. While a substantial literature explores the factors influencing rule compliance in the context of formal protected areas that rely mostly on enforcement of legislation by regulatory authorities, less is known about such dynamics in Community-Based Conservation (CBC) that rely mostly on conformity with local collective decisions. Taking a qualitative case study approach, this paper examines the determinants of compliance with livestock grazing rules for a particular CBC model, namely the community conservancies of Maasai Mara in southwestern Kenya, which continue to struggle with livestock encroachment. The findings highlight the drivers and barriers to compliance with livestock grazing rules by conservancy members (landowners), offering key lessons into how conducive factors can be leveraged for behavioural changes critical for progress towards sustainability of conservancies. Overall, economic benefits, deterrence (enforcement and sanctions), and normative incentives (social and personal norms) came out as key motivating factors, reinforced by high dependence on natural resources. Recommended policy actions include strengthening and diversifying revenue streams, improving conservancy governance structures, enhancing enforcement capacity, and raising conservation awareness.