Word: laikipia
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James Christian remembers the night a few years ago when he and his wife took a Scottish travel agent camping on their land in Kenya's Laikipia Plateau. As they sat under a starry African sky, the hill opposite them suddenly erupted with gunfire and loud booms. "Red tracer fire opened up, and there were these massive explosions - all of this was opposite us enjoying our African-wilderness experience," Christian says...
...Kenya's Laikipia region, located north of Nairobi near Mount Kenya, is known for its wide-open spaces, hills and climate - hot in the day and cool at night. It is home to dozens of landowners - some of whom snapped up their lots before Kenya won independence from Britain in 1963 - as well as Africa's most fabled animals: lions, leopards and elephants. This, and the fact that there's no malaria, makes Laikipia a popular destination for tourists looking to get off the beaten track. Yet the emptiness also appeals to the British army, which has been training...
...Laikipia now finds itself caught up in the politics of faraway warmaking. As Britain increases its troop levels in Afghanistan (numbers there have doubled to about 10,000 in the past three years), it has ramped up its training exercises in Kenya, with more than 3,000 soldiers passing through the region each year. The army says Laikipia is perhaps its best training ground because the conditions there - high altitude, extreme heat, hilly terrain - are remarkably similar to those found in Afghanistan...
...they continue their decadelong push to market the area as a wildlife destination while also accommodating the needs of the British army? Residents are trying to balance both demands. "The current level of training is high. It's never been this high," says Anthony King, executive director of the Laikipia Wildlife Forum, a conservation group. "Clearly, army training and other land uses [like wildlife tourism] may not always be compatible. There are definitely people who have invested heavily in tourism who are deeply concerned about the [region's] image. But if it's managed well, the army doesn't have...
...recent years to lessen its impact on the surroundings. At Mpala Ranch, where the army does some training, officials have agreed to move their exercises to an area that doesn't butt up against landowners who run tourism ventures. The Mpala Research Center, an independent scientific-research station in Laikipia, has begun a study to measure the effects of the training on wildlife. (The army contends that there have been no serious disturbances to the animals since it boosted its training program.) And by 2011, the army says, it will no longer conduct major training exercises during the peak tourist...