The storm began in mid-April when it emerged that Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), the custodians of the country's national parks and game reserves, planned to fence off the park and build luxury lodges through a new management plan dubbed the Nairobi National Park 2020-2030 management plan.
The fallout between the KWS chair and the agency is said to have begun sometime last year when KWS embarked on developing a 10-year management plan for the Nairobi National Park which many conservationists believed to be undermining conservation efforts.
The task-force, whose membership was derived from Kenya's top conservation experts, developed a national report on Wildlife Corridors and Dispersal Areas to help 'restore connectivity and resilience to the natural environment'.
The report notes that while much of Kenya's wildlife depends on the protection of parks and reserves,' healthy wildlife populations also needed access to resources in the broader landscape outside protected areas.
Reinhard Bonke, a wildlife and environmental campaigner at Friends of Nairobi National Park says that complete fencing of the park will undermine the adjacent communities' efforts to keeping the park's lifeline dispersal area open for wildlife movement and grazing activities.
