Elephants or Onions? Paying for Nature in Amboseli, Kenya

Traditional grazing grounds near Amboseli National Park (Kenya) are being rapidly converted to cropland ¿ a process that closes important wildlife corridors. We use a spatially explicit simulation model that integrates ecosystem dynamics and pastoral decision-making to explore the scope for introducing a `payments for ecosystem services¿ scheme to compensate pastoralists for spillover benefits associated with forms of land use that are compatible with wildlife conservation. Our break-even cost analysis suggests that the benefits of such a scheme likely exceed its costs for a large part of the study area, but that `leakage effects¿ through excessive stocking rates warrant close scrutiny.