Local Rules and Customary Regulations on Natural Resource Management in Lower Tana Catchment, Kenya

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and its partners are implementing a three-year (2012-14) project funded by Austrian Development Agency. The project’s overall objective is: “To improve resilience of drylands communities (within a river catchment) to the impacts of increasingly severe and recurrent droughts through strengthened ecosystem management and adaptive capacity”. The project, known as Building Drought Resilience through Land and Water Management is being implemented in Kenya in the Lower Tana sub-catchment and Uganda in the Upper Aswa-Agago sub-catchment. The project has five key results, one of which is improving the capacity and coordination of traditional and formal institutions, their rules and systems in the sustainable management of ecosystems. It is within this context that IUCN commissioned a study to identify and consolidate local rules and customary regulations that still, or used to exist, and that are, or used to be, used to manage the natural resources. The results of this study were designed to be used in an analysis of the opportunities for integration of local rules and systems within the more modern and formal institutions, laws and regulations for natural resource use and management. This briefing note presents the findings of this study and highlights the recommendations made by it and that are now being implemented within the framework of the project