Meet Leitoro and his work in Kenya

Leitoro already got introduced into conservation at a young age. Growing up as the son of a Kenya Wildlife Service officer, he spent his childhood traversing Kenya’s many natural areas. He saw conservation through the official lens of national parks, but as a member of the pastoralist Rendille people in Marsabit he also experienced another reality: that of stewardship and coexistence of people and nature.

‘Nobody understands the landscape better than a pastoralist who has lived there their whole life’, Leitoro says. However, this knowledge is not always acknowledged and reflected in solutions imposed by external actors. That’s why he co-founded Nature and People as One (NaPO) in 2021. All the work they do is based on the recognition that the pastoralist communities have the knowledge, lived experiences and the tools to steward the land they live in.

Now a PhD student, Leitoro aims to bridge the gap between this pastoralist knowledge and conservation. His goal is to bring this practical, actionable knowledge to his studies, as he recognizes both knowledges are valuable forms of science that complement each other. Through socioecological perspectives he will be looking at human-wildlife coexistence through time: the past, present and future.

This research will essentially be a continuation of the work he has been doing with NaPO. Through NaPO’s Herders Conservation Network, pastoralists are using digital monitoring devices to track livestock movements, water points and wildlife distribution. This baseline data will directly feed into Leitoro’s research and beautifully reflects the intersection of different knowledges: ‘The pastoralists use technology for this, but the basis is not the technology, the basis is the fact that pastoralist herders know their land. And you can only find where the information is if someone really understands the landscape’.

As he navigates his PhD, Leitoro looks forward to challenging his own perspectives, even if it means braving the Dutch winter. With his work he hopes to shine a light on the role of pastoralists as conservation experts, especially in policy spaces such as the Convention of Biological Diversity, where this recognition is still much needed.

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