Loisaba Conservancy

Loisaba is 58,000 acres of northern Laikipia, further out and drier than the conservancies clustered around Nanyuki, and it is the place where black rhino came back to a landscape that had been without them for fifty years. It is also one of the few large Kenyan conservancies whose title genuinely sits with a community trust rather than with a family, a company or a foundation.

The Return of the Black Rhino

In early 2024 Kenya Wildlife Service completed the translocation of 21 eastern black rhinos to Loisaba, drawn from three existing populations: three from Nairobi National Park, six from Ol Pejeta Conservancy and twelve from Lewa Wildlife Conservancy. The operation took eighteen days and was marked by the Cabinet Secretary for Tourism and Wildlife at Loisaba on 12 February 2024. Loisaba became Kenya’s seventeenth black rhino breeding sanctuary.

Two things make it more than a logistics story. The first is the fifty-year gap: rhinos had been absent from this landscape since the poaching decades, and the Cabinet Secretary’s remarks acknowledged Loisaba’s choice to take them back. The second is the national arithmetic the move belonged to. Kenya’s black rhino population had fallen to approximately 384 animals by 1989 from around 20,000 in the 1970s. It crossed 1,000 for the first time in four decades at the end of 2023, reaching 1,004, and the country now holds roughly 80 per cent of the world’s eastern black rhino. Kenya Wildlife Service puts the current national rhino total at approximately 2,102 animals across all three types. Sanctuaries like Lewa and Ol Pejeta had reached the point of needing somewhere for the surplus to go, and Loisaba was the answer.

Southern white rhino are also present, and the conservancy has reported the population reaching eleven after a calf was born.

Kenya Wildlife Service has not published a post-release census for the Loisaba founder population, so any specific figure for how the 21 have fared since 2024 is not currently sourceable. The monitoring system described at the time used long-range network sensors, unmanned aerial systems and aircraft alongside ground teams.

Who Owns Loisaba

The land was bought in the early 1970s by the Ancilotto family, who ran it as a low-impact cattle ranch alongside a small tourism operation. The Loisaba brand was established in 1997 by Tom Silvester, then the livestock manager, with Peter Silvester and Giles Davis and the backing of investors.

The decisive change came in December 2014, when The Nature Conservancy and Space for Giants facilitated the transfer of the property and its operating companies to the Loisaba Community Trust. Ownership genuinely changed hands. That distinguishes Loisaba from most of the Laikipia conservancies, which remain privately or charitably held however community-focused their programmes are, and it is the reason the phrase community-owned means something specific here.

The practical consequences are visible on the ground. Neighbouring communities, largely Samburu, have managed grazing access to the conservancy. A livestock-to-markets programme links their herds to buyers. The conservancy has created more than two hundred jobs, and revenue is reinvested in schools and health clinics in the surrounding settlements.

Wildlife and the Elephant Corridor

Loisaba holds more than 260 bird species and around 50 mammal species. The list includes lion, leopard, African wild dog, reticulated giraffe, Grevy’s zebra, Beisa oryx and now both rhino species.

The more important fact is not a species but a route. Loisaba sits inside a movement corridor that The Nature Conservancy describes as carrying Kenya’s second-largest elephant population. Elephants here are passing through a landscape rather than resident in a park, which is what conservancy land is for and why the fencing decisions across northern Laikipia matter so much.

Leopard is unusually reliable at Loisaba by the standards of an open landscape, and the conservancy has reported that 85 per cent of surveyed guests saw one during their stay, which is a self-reported figure but a striking one.

African wild dog are present and are one of the species that makes northern Laikipia worth the extra driving. They range enormously, which means they are found across several conservancies rather than held by any one of them, and it is another argument for the connected landscape that the region’s fencing decisions are meant to preserve. Grevy’s zebra follow the same logic: the Grevy’s Zebra Trust’s 2018 count put 2,812 of a global 3,042 in Kenya, spread across Samburu, Marsabit and Laikipia counties rather than concentrated anywhere.

What There Is to Do

Loisaba’s activity range is broad even by conservancy standards, and the emptiness of the northern country is the reason to use it.

• Walking safaris, in terrain open enough to walk properly
• Night game drives
• Horseback safaris and camel safaris
• Star beds, the format Loisaba is best known for, where the bed is wheeled out under open sky
• Cycling and birdwatching
• Conservation activities with the rhino and wildlife monitoring teams
• Stargazing, which the altitude, the dry air and the distance from any town make genuinely good

Getting to Loisaba

Loisaba is further north than the Nanyuki cluster and the drive shows it. Most travellers fly, using scheduled and charter services from Wilson Airport in Nairobi to the conservancy airstrip, which turns a long road day into under an hour. By road the route runs through Nanyuki and then out into northern Laikipia on rougher going.

Access is by staying on the conservancy. Loisaba publishes no day entrance tariff, and as private conservancy land in Laikipia County rather than a national park, no Kenya Wildlife Service fee schedule applies. The Laikipia guide sets out which conservancies on the plateau admit day visitors and which do not.

When to Go

Northern Laikipia is drier than the ground around Mount Kenya and the seasons bite harder. The long rains around April and May and the short rains around November affect track conditions and walking more than they affect game viewing. The dry months concentrate animals at water, which in country this open makes a real difference to what a game drive finds. Nights are cold at altitude year-round.

Questions Travellers Ask About Loisaba