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GIS in support of participatory land use planning in the Districts Keiyo & Marakwet, Kenya within the sub-location. The PLUP process is the focus of this paper, which contains highlights of the PLUP exercises from four sub-locations of Transect M -illustrated in figure 2, an overview of the main environmental problems and the plans developed to enable the communities to manage their natural resources in a sustainable manner. During the exercises, community members identified the main natural resources that they have, for instance water sources and forests. They discussed how the environmental situation had changed over the years: Was the forest bigger ten years ago than it is today? Are people finding it more difficult to get clean water?. All these problems were listed, starting with the most important ones. Once the problems had been ranked, the community members proposed strategies for better management of these resources in the future. These strategies were put down in natural resource management maps -- for instance showing where the community would like to maintain the forest boundary. Parallel to the PLUP process, a project was initiated to develop natural resource maps for each sub-location. The maps were developed after photographs of the area had been taken from the air by an expert in this technology. The maps indicate exactly where the rivers, forests, rangelands, and cultivated land are located. For some transects, aerial maps had been done in 1991 and so it was possible to compare how much the landscape had changed in ten years. The maps make it easier for local communities to locate and monitor important natural resources in order to adhere to their conservation targets. 
2.1 Summary of the PLUP Process in transect M The PLUP exercises took place in four sub-locations within Transect M, namely Kapsowar, Kapsumai, |