Safe at Last: How the Naibunga Community Triumphed over Tragedy and Human-Elephant Conflict

Community conservancies play a critical role in mitigating human-wildlife conflict.

In the three units of Naibunga Community Conservancies within Laikipia County, elephants have caused loss of human life and property, injuring some residents, and displacing others. Children heading to school, and women fetching water, lived in constant fear of encountering an elephant on their way.

To avert further loss of human life and prevent incidents of human-elephant conflict, in 2022, the three conservancies in partnership with Kenya Wildlife Service and support from Italian Agency for Development Cooperation and other partners jointly erected a 40-kilometer electric fence in Naibunga to keep elephants out of settlement areas while still allowing the free movement of people and livestock.

Since the fence’s construction, no deaths or injuries have been recorded.