Final Evaluation of the - UNEP

gave it many advantages. The more complex Turkana sites had to deal with conflicts between
pastoralists and agriculturalists especially in the site-specific riverine forests. In all three
countries, the critical issue of preventing overgrazing was not made a priority. This is only
possible where the issue of livestock numbers is tackled. Deferred grazing (an obvious
traditional management system of value) works well where the grazing is allowed to recover
but only adds to the pressure and land degradation elsewhere. The reality of too many animals
is one of the main causes of land degradation on open range; unless the cause (too many
animals) is addressed rather than the symptom (too little grass cover), the situation will only
deteriorate. The IVP did not address this issue.
6. While the development of the Master’s degree (M.Sc.) programme was satisfactory
(concluded before the MTE), the findings of the theses appeared not to influence or feed into
project implementation. For example, one of the theses showed quite clearly that plant species
composition increased with distance from water. So water development in a biodiversity
project could be seen as counter-productive. Site-specific or “targeted” research by the
University of Oslo never really started. The type(s) of indigenous vegetation management
“model(s)” to be developed remain undefined although deferred grazing is an obvious
candidate. A Regional Technical Coordinator was never appointed for budgetary reasons;
UoO offered to take over this role but the relationship with this contracted Research Agency
proved a difficult one. Little relevant research was undertaken beyond data gathering for the
M.Sc. theses. Local universities (University of Botswana, Egerton University and ISRA) were
contracted after the MTE and this may help in ensuring sustainability while enhancing
capacity of national institutions. However, this research was on-going and not finalized at
project completion. Since no site-specific baseline was ever developed it has been difficult to
judge whether the project had any impact on the key objective(s) of range rehabilitation,
biodiversity conservation and the incorporation of indigenous knowledge into range
management systems. This could have been done for all project sites to show tree and grass
cover and tree age structure at the start and end of the project. Some data were collected by
some of the other research institutions but these are mostly surveys. Few community members
expressed the view to the FE that the research had any interest or relevance to them.
7. To answer the questions posed in the ToR: indigenous vegetation in degraded rangelands
has not been widely rehabilitated through reducing pressure on the vegetation resources
except in small pockets of deferred grazing (in Marsabit and Turkana) or where explicit
enclosures (or exclosures) have been made (e.g. Village Biodiversity Conservation Areas) or
on soil conservation structures at Nara where trees have been planted and grasses come back.
On a large scale, rangeland rehabilitation will take years (or decades) to achieve and it is
difficult to demonstrate because of large inter-seasonal and inter-annual variations. The
project has not achieved increases in livestock feed resources (i.e. IV on rangelands) in
surrounding areas nor has it widely “established appropriate indigenous management
systems”. The phrase is ambiguous anyway: it was unclear if it meant new management
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