National parks should be protected, not cannibalised for urban growth

Before the dust had settled, however, Central Organisation of Trade Unions (COTU) Secretary General Francis Atwoli caused a stir when he called for the dissolution of Nairobi Park to decongest and create a ‘new Nairobi with roads, facilities, and proper industrial parks.’ Unsurprisingly, his views caused considerable public outrage among conservationists who, like many Kenyans, believe Nairobi should maintain its iconic status as the only capital city in the world with a national park.  

However, the elephant that emerged out of the blue in Athi-Kapiti—and Atwoli’s suggestion to swap the world’s only urban wildlife national park for roads and industrial parks—point to one of Africa’s oldest dilemmas: the challenge of balancing rural and urban development while maintaining healthy ecosystems for people and wildlife. 

Incompatible land use practices, the shift from pastoralism to sedentary lifestyles, and land subdivision and habitat fragmentation are considerable threats to these migration corridors. In the past three decades, crop cultivation, high-density human settlements, fences, mining and quarrying, woodland clearing, wetland drainage, increased livestock numbers, and poaching have drastically reduced the room for wildlife to roam. As a result, KWS reports a 67.3% national decline in aggregated wildlife species between 1977 and 2013, against a surge in human and livestock numbers. In Nairobi National Park, a wildebeest migration that had 30,000 animals in the 1960s has collapsed to a mere 200 individuals.  

Nairobi’s population, on the other hand, has shot up from an approximate 350,000 in 1963 to more than five million people in 2025, with a portion of this population settling in wildlife dispersal and migration spaces in Athi River and Kitengela. But is converting the park into an urban jungle the solution, as Atwoli suggests? If the park were to give way to infrastructure and human settlements, what happens when the population doubles to 10 million by 2050, as is projected?  

Untapped potential 

In an official statement, Institution of Surveyors of Kenya President Eric Nyadimo opposed the ‘systemic erosion of ecological safeguards by commercializing protected (wildlife) areas.’ Instead, he called for the adoption and enforcement of sustainable land use principles; mapping the country; and upholding zoning regulations, spatial development plans, and environmental laws. 

This roadmap is, fortunately, encapsulated in Kenya’s environmental laws, which are arguably among the most progressive in Africa. The Wildlife Conservation and Management Act, for instance, now legitimises private and community-owned conservancies as a protected form of land use for wildlife management and tourism development. KWS, meanwhile, has mapped more than 100 critical wildlife migration routes and corridors as part of a vision and strategy towards sustainable use of natural resources, biodiversity protection, and the maintenance of ecosystem processes. 

It is now incumbent upon county governors to seize this moment to demarcate the migratory routes and corridors within their jurisdiction into restricted zones for wildlife. These can be secured and safeguarded in collaboration with the national government, development partners, landowners, and local communities. 

These spaces offer immense opportunities and rewards for communities. For one, the tourism potential on these lands, which host over 65% of Kenya’s wildlife population, remains untapped. Further, secured migration corridors provide unhindered livestock and wildlife movement, protect water sources, reduce human-wildlife conflict, and enrich and improve ecosystem and community resilience to climate change.