At the Basel Peace Forum, swisspeace’s annual gathering in Basel that convenes policy, research, business, and civil society, Dr. Benson Okita, Director of the Wyss Academy for Nature’s Hub East Africa, shared examples from northern Kenya showing how governance, restoration, and livelihoods shape conflict risk in and around protected areas. 

Land use decisions, where people graze, farm, draw water, and move, can become flashpoints when rules are unclear and benefits are uneven. Among others, this was one of the topics included in the Focus Zone on “Conservation and conflict in East Africa” at the Basel Peace Forum, where Dr. Benson Okita discussed how protected-area governance and conservation finance can either deepen grievances or reduce pressure on shared resources. “One wants to ensure that the benefits of well-being and the benefits of nature actually are mutually supporting each other. We want to ensure that human well-being and nature conservation are mutually reinforcing,” he noted. 

The Basel Peace Forum marked its tenth edition with reflections from swisspeace Director Laurent Goetschel on why convening spaces like this still matter. He noted that the structural drivers of conflict, such as inequality and discrimination, have long been present, even as the international environment has changed. He returned to the Forum’s purpose of making the political dimensions of issues often treated as technical, such as climate, health, and urban planning, visible for constructive debate across sectors. “We have to defend this space,” he said, calling for bottom-up creativity, a clear stand on core values, and adaptation in a tougher environment. 

The Focus Zone examined how protected-area governance intersects with climate and biodiversity finance. The session framing highlighted rising interest in national parks, nature reserves, and wilderness areas as governments seek revenues from conservation-based tourism and international climate and biodiversity funding. At the same time, it noted that efforts to curb illegal wildlife trade have contributed to militarized conservation in parts of East Africa, allowing the use of force against communities accused of trespass, and discussed the social and human-rights risks this can create for people living in and around protected areas and for third parties investing in their management. 

The Focus Zone moderated by Dustin Schäfer, team lead for campaigns on multilateral financial institutions at Urgewald. It brought together speakers with complementary perspectives: Evelyn Dietsche, a member of the World Bank Inspection Panel; Juhani Grossmann, director of the Green Corruption program at the Basel Institute on Governance; Ilka Herbinger, deputy director and director of environmental and social safeguards at the Legacy Landscapes Fund; Martina Santschi, senior researcher at swisspeace; and Dr. Benson Okita, director of the Wyss Academy for Nature’s Hub East Africa. 

Dr. Okita’s contribution focused on how conflict risks can be reduced when biodiversity goals are pursued alongside livelihoods and climate realities, rather than treated as separate agendas. He warned that when conservation is blind to climate realities, to its own footprint, and to people, it becomes “conflict-prone conservation.” He described how the Wyss Academy for Nature works across hubs and disciplines to test solutions in real landscapes, learn from results, and scale what works. 

He illustrated this with work in northern Kenya, including Oldonyiro (Isiolo County) and Naibunga (Laikipia County). In these semiarid rangelands, he said, tensions can intensify when land is degraded, access is contested, movement corridors are blocked by fencing, human settlements and other forms of infrastructure developments and rainfall becomes less reliable. In response, he noted how our teams have paired rehabilitation of degraded areas with efforts to secure migration corridors and support nature-based livelihoods. In one demonstration site, semicircular bunds helped grass re-establish within about a year and improved infiltration, easing pressure on shared grazing areas. 

He also pointed to work around the Gambella wetland in northern Kenya, where overlapping claims on water and biomass require governance that is inclusive and enforceable, alongside restoration and alternative livelihoods. For Dr. Okita, the common thread across these examples is practical: when rules are legitimate, benefits are visible, and learning systems track both ecological and social outcomes, conservation is more likely to hold under pressure. 

Dr. Okita’s perspective goes hand in hand with the Wyss Academy for Nature’s way of working: partnering across sectors to test practical approaches in specific landscapes and using evidence from that work to inform decisions on land use and governance. Alongside perspectives on oversight, safeguards, and governance standards, Dr. Okita brought a field-based viewpoint on how restoration choices, wildlife movement corridor planning, and livelihood options can change the pressure points that often escalate into disputes. The Basel Peace Forum plays an important role in this context, as it brings different roles into one conversation: research and analysis, oversight and safeguards, and people responsible for designing and implementing conservation models, so that assumptions can be tested against operational realities and lived experience.