Biodiversity conservation in Kenya

Where to prioritize conservation to meet 30x30 targets

A look at protected areas globally...

Through the ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World, the World Conservation Monitoring Centre provides data on conservation areas worldwide.

Esri, USGS | Esri, TomTom, Garmin, FAO, NOAA, USGS | UNEP-WCMC and IUCN (2021), Protected Planet: The World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA), Cambridge, UK: UNEP-WCMC and IUCN. Available at: www.protectedplanet.net.
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protected areas

Esri, USGS | Esri Eastern Africa, Esri, TomTom, Garmin, FAO, NOAA, USGS
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protected areas in Kenya

14% of terrestrial area in Kenya conserved, mostly under indigenous or national management.

To meet 30x30 conservation goals, Kenya will need to conserve approximately...

80,000 additional square kilometers in the next 7 years.

Which 80k square kilometers should be prioritized for conservation in Kenya?


Living Atlas Data

Data from the ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World can be used to identify areas of high value for conservation.

Species biodiversity

Kenya stands out for both its high species richness and rarity

Access to water helps with essential ecosystem functions

High resolution ESA Land Cover data shows the diversity of ecosystems in East Africa

Based on 2050 projections, some landscapes are highly vulnerable to change due to urbanization or other pressures.

Suitability Modeling for Conservation

The ArcGIS Suitability Modeler can be used to identify optimal areas for conservation. The model can integrate layers related to biodiversity importance (species richness and rarity), ecosystem services (proximity to water and landcover type) as well as degradation (vulnerability to change. These layers are rescaled and summed to identify areas with cumulative high suitability scores. The locate regions portion of the model can then identify contiguous regions of a certain size to prioritize for conservation.

Suitability results for Kenya

Suitability for biodiversity conservation in Kenya

Southwestern Kenya shows the greatest suitabiltiy for conservation areas to conserve biodiversity. This region has both high species richness and rarity as well as lots of access to lakes and inland waterways. This area today contains a lot of forested land and shrubland but is under increasing vulnerability to change by 2050, heightening its need for conservation by 2030.

The model used a total of 5 transformed layers to identify suitable regions:

  1. Species richness (Half-Earth Project)
  2. Species rarity (Half-Earth Project)
  3. World distance to water (Esri)
  4. Landcover (European Space Agency)
  5. Landcover vulnerability to change (Clark Labs)

Suitable locations for biodiveristy conservation in Kenya

The model identifies 4 areas that together will help Kenya reach 30x30 by conserving an additional 80,000 square kilometers of land. Click to view attributes for each.

Suitable areas

With proper spatial planning and inclusive execution, the world can achieve its 30x30 conservation goals.

Suitability for biodiversity conservation in Kenya