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{
    "id": 803139,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/803139/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 26,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Olekina",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 407,
        "legal_name": "Ledama Olekina",
        "slug": "ledama-olekina"
    },
    "content": "Thank you Mr. Speaker, Sir, for giving me this opportunity to add my voice to this important Petition that I support. Coming from Narok, I know that the defunct Narok County Council used to contribute 19 per cent of the revenue collected from the Maasai Mara Game Reserve to the communities surrounding the game park. Over time, those communities came together and formed their own private conservancies. We now have other community conservancies and I agree with Sen. Halake that they need to be given a lot of support. One of the roles of the conservancies is to support education. I come from Maasai region and went to school courtesy of the money that was generated from those conservancies. The 19 per cent that was being given to the communities around the park is what helped me go to school. However, there are various things that we have to take into consideration. There are private conservancies in this country that do not benefit the local communities. There is a game park that, overall, helps the entire country given that our game parks are one of the highest foreign exchange earners of this country. On the issue of community conservancies, a lot of things are changing. The way people, for example the Maasai, lived before has changed. They used to keep tens of thousands of livestock. Now, because of the rapid environmental changes that have taken place, the numbers have reduced. People who live next to the game parks, as a way of making money, join the private conservancies. I concur with my colleagues who said that in most cases, the citizens do not benefit. I want to encourage the Committee that will look into this issue of how county governments and the national Government can support these private conservancies to come up with suggestions that can encourage people who own land around the conservancies to live together and set aside the huge chunks of land. When this is done, it will help the entire ecosystem and reduce the human-wildlife conflict. This can also be taken in as economic development. With regard to Maasai Mara, for instance, I get calls every day from the locals asking me to buy their land because they cannot use it. This is a matter that I would like to see taken seriously, so that the locals can benefit. Thank you, Mr. Speaker, Sir."
}