The Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) has dismissed a complaint filed by conservationists and Maasai community leaders, stating that the new Ritz-Carlton Safari Camp does not block the passage of the annual wildebeest migration in the Maasai Mara.
Dubbed ‘the greatest wildlife roadshow on Earth’, the Great Migration attracts enormous global attention to the Maasai Mara ecosystem. It is therefore unsurprising that the luxury hotel chain chose this area for its new tented camp.
STATEMENT ON CLAIMS OF WILDEBEEST MIGRATION BLOCKAGE IN THE MAASAI MARA NATIONAL RESERVE pic.twitter.com/jzmGW4a3sO
— Kenya Wildlife Service (@KWSKenya) November 27, 2025
Since August, the project has faced fierce pushback when conservationists and Maasai leaders filed a lawsuit accusing the newly opened lodge of disrupting a critical migration corridor.
Every year, around 1.5 million wildebeest, 400,000 zebras, 12,000 elands and 300,000 Thomson’s and Grant’s gazelles travel from Tanzania’s Serengeti to Kenya, covering approximately 800 kilometres in a clockwise loop, to spend several months on the plains of the Maasai Mara. The timing of their arrival depends on rainfall patterns, grazing conditions, and wider climatic shifts.
The legal case was filed on 7 August by Meitamei Oloff Dapash, director of the Maasai Education, Research and Conservation (MERC) Institute. He argues that the 20 tented suites, each with private decks and plunge pools, built along the Sand River violate the 2023–2032 Maasai Mara Management Plan, which imposed a moratorium on new tourist accommodation in ecologically sensitive areas until 2032.
“The preservation of wildlife migration is a treasure that we cannot afford to lose,” said Dapash.
The controversy escalated after a video circulated online seemingly showing confused wildebeest confronted with a barrier, with people in the background attempting to move them away.
This is a terrible sight to behold. Why allow people to build at the very site of crossing? Wildlife – the great migration is what sustains the Reserve. This issue has come in the media before but apparently nothing was ever done about it. REALLY why this? pic.twitter.com/4KXvo1iv70
— James Ole Kiyiapi (@JamesOleKiyiapi) November 22, 2025
In a detailed statement issued on 27 November, KWS said it had “noted with concern” the allegations circulating on social media. The authority stressed that the camp lies within a designated low-use investment zone, as defined by the Maasai Mara National Reserve Management Plan. This zoning, KWS explained, is based on comprehensive scientific assessments, ecological sensitivity analyses, and spatial planning frameworks informed by over 20 years of GPS-collar tracking data.
These long-term datasets demonstrate that migrating wildebeest “use the entire breadth of the 68-kilometre Kenya – Tanzania border and have no specific or preferred corridor”.
KWS also stated that several images circulating online, which are being used to blame the Ritz-Carlton camp, are “outdated, misleading or presented without context”.
This video shows how the Ritz-Carlton concealed a section of its construction from the official drawings, placing it directly in a migratory corridor. A hotel charging $350,000 per night means it will never even be accessible to most Kenyans, but choosing short-term profit over… https://t.co/zHiisJANRK pic.twitter.com/6xenwBCzmB
— Nelson Amenya (@amenya_nelson) November 20, 2025
The agency insisted that all ecological, environmental and regulatory requirements had been met prior to the camp’s approval and emphasised that all developments in protected areas undergo mandatory assessments to ensure they align with conservation priorities.
The National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) has confirmed that the Ritz-Carlton camp is not located on any wildlife migratory corridor, ‘in line with its statutory mandate under the Wildlife Conservation and Management Act’.
The Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), in line with its statutory mandate under the Wildlife Conservation and Management Act, has formally testified and certified that the Ritz-Carlton Masai Mara is not situated on any wildlife migratory corridor.
— NEMA Kenya (@NemaKenya) November 28, 2025
This confirmation is supported by…
David Ongare, NEMA’s Director of Compliance, said that the Environmental Impact Assessment had been carried out in full, involving public participation forums and stakeholder input. He added that the project’s certification was supported by ecological surveys, GPS-referenced field studies, and scientifically verifiable data, all of which were consistent with the EIA licence and subsequent environmental audits.
Narok County officials have also dismissed the accusations as unfounded and misleading.
Undeterred, activists argue that the issue goes beyond this one development. They say that the case reflects mounting concern about the rapid expansion of high-value tourism in Kenya’s protected areas.
‘It is deeply troubling that a company known for maintaining strict environmental and ethical standards would abandon those same standards in Kenya,’ said Dapash.
