When you stay at a camp which supports the conservancies in the Mara, your money is going to pay for a home for wildlife and to create income for the Maasai families which own the land.

The 24 small camps listed below are located in these four Mara Conservancies (from East to West): Ol Kinyei Conservancy, Naboisho Conservancy, Olare Motorogi Conservancy and Mara North Conservancy.

Ol Kinyei Conservancy:  4 camps with 29 tents paying land leases for 18,600 acres in Ol Kinyei and 3,500 acres in Naboisho (total 22,100 acres for 29 tents).

Porini Mara Camp – 6 tents                                                                                                                       Porini Cheetah Camp – 6 tents
Porini Bush Camp – 8 tents (seasonal)
Gamewatchers Adventure Camp – 9 tents (seasonal)

Bush Dining in Ol Kinyei

 

Game Drive in Ol Kinyei

Naboisho Conservancy:  7 camps with 57 tents paying land leases for 50,000 acres

Asilia Naboisho Camp – 9 tents
Encounter Mara – 10 tents
Eagle View – 12 tents
Dorobo Wilderness Camp – 5 tents
Kicheche Valley – 6 tents
Ol Seki Hemingways Mara – 10 tents
Porini Mara Camp – pays for 5 tents

Porini Mara Camp

 

Guest tent at Porini Mara Camp

Olare Motorogi Conservancy: 5 camps with 47 tents paying land leases for 32,900 acres

Mahali Mzuri – 12 tents
Porini Lion Camp – 10 tents
Mara Plains – 7 tents
Olare Kempinski – 12 tents
Kicheche Bush Camp – 6 tents

 

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Wildlife in Olare Motorogi Conservancy

 

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View from guest tent at Porini Lion Camp

Mara North Conservancy: 10 camps with 106 tents/rooms paying land leases for 74,000 acres

Acacia House & Mara House – 6 rooms
Elephant Pepper Camp – 10 tents
Neptune Mara Rianta Camp – 20 tents
Karen Blixen Camp – 22 tents
Kicheche Mara Camp – 8 tents
Offbeat Mara Camp – 6 tents
Richard’s Camp – 7 tents
Royal Mara Safari Lodge – 8 rooms
Saruni Mara – 9 rooms
Serian – 10 tents

Safaris Unlimited – contributes for riding safaris

TOTAL 25 small camps with 234 tents / 468 beds paying for leases of 175,000 acres. Average camp size less than 10 tents / 20 beds per camp.

With less than 240 tents between all 25 small camps in these 4 conservancies, they have secured an area of habitat for wildlife equivalent to adding half the size of the Mara Reserve and thereby providing more space for the animals of the Mara, as well as generating incomes and livelihoods for the landowner families and creating a low density form of tourism which is appreciated by visitors who can view the animals without having large numbers of tourist vehicles present.

Elsewhere there are over 120 other camps in the Mara Reserve and the surrounding area, with over 4,000 beds in total, and these include 7 big lodges having over 1,000 beds between them!

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Map of the Masai Mara region showing the Reserve and the Conservancies

Click Here to download at larger version of this map

Within Ol Kinyei, Naboisho and Olare Motorogi Conservancies there is a limit on the number of tents in each conservancy (maximum 12 tents per camp, maximum 1 tent per 700 acres and maximum 1 safari vehicle per 1400 acres). This formula was originally devised by Jake Grieves-Cook of Gamewatchers Safaris, based on his observations of what ideally should be the maximum capacity of Ol Kinyei Conservancy when it was first set up in 2005 and this has now been adopted as the standard for the Conservancies in the Mara.
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Guest from Porini Mara Camp learns of the flora and fauna of Ol Kinyei on an included bush walk

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Elephants in Ol Kinyei Conservancy

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Leopard in Olare Motorogi Conservancy by regular Porini Camp guest Joseph Lam

We encourage visitors to stay at the camps listed above which support the conservancy model of protecting wildlife habitat on land owned by the local Maasai community to create income and employment for the landowners from wildlife conservation and a low-density form of tourism.  It is these safari camps which are the ones paying for the leases and running costs of the conservancies.

These are the camps which should be recommended as the places to stay and visitors are urged to support them and to avoid the “rogue camps” which in recent years have been mushrooming everywhere in the Mara outside the Reserve and the Conservancies and doing little or nothing for conservation of wildlife!

Within the conservancies, the wildlife numbers have been steadily increasing in recent years and it is recognised that they now offer some of the best wildlife viewing in Africa, especially of the big cats. Within parts of Mara North Conservancy and Olare Motorogi Conservancy as well as in an overlapping area of Naboisho and Ol Kinyei conservancies it is estimated that there is a higher concentration of wild free-roaming and unconfined lions than anywhere else in Africa.
Lions in Ol Kinyei

Lions in Ol Kinyei Conservancy by Jake Grieves-Cook

To see more details and to book a camp in the Mara Conservancies click on the link below: