Bulletin:  the Conference on Conserving Elephants has just been Concluded.
                 Preliminary Report to follow soon.

Recently Completed:   Lale’enok - a centre built and donated for community-based conservation

Managing wildlife, tourism and livestock calls for good information and sound planning. In 2011, The South Rift Association of Landowners (SORALO) and ACC launched the Lale’enok Resource Centre with conservation research and planning in mind. The centre is named after the traditional Maasai scouts who gather information vital to the welfare of their families and herds. Lale’enok brings together community scouts, local resource assessors, scientists, students, conservationists and communities to gather and communicate information crucial to wildlife conservation and community development in the South Rift.  

Lale’enok pioneers new approaches to research, conservation and rangeland development. The centre, run by the Olkiramatian Women’s Group, has quickly become the gathering point and information centre for SORALO communities. It will link up the conservation and development plans of the 15 group ranches.  Rooted in the traditional coexistence between the Maasai and wildlife, the conservancies have seen elephants return to the South Rift, wildlife herds double, lion numbers triple and cheetahs and wild dogs become regular visitors. The conservancies also double as traditional grass banks that cut livestock losses in drought, promote rotational grazing and ease competition between wildlife and livestock.

Using Lale’enok as a model, ACC and SORALO are building community based organizations (CBOs) and conservancies across the South Rift, and linking Amboseli and Maasai Mara through their “Future of the Open Rangelands” program.” Lale’enok serves as the information, communications and planning hub.

Newest & Upcoming

Project Name: Conserving Elephants in the Tanzania-Kenya Borderlands – Forging a Collaborative Approach (Arusha, February 16-17 2012)
Project Manager:  David Western
Funding From:  Liz Claiborne Art Ortenberg Foundation
Summary:  The meeting brings together government agencies, community representatives, researchers, and conservation organizations in the Kenya-Tanzania borderlands concerned with monitoring, protecting and conserving elephants. The meeting considers how individuals and organizations working in the region can work together to assess the status and movements of elephant populations in the borderlands region; identify the pathways for establishing a viable interconnected elephant population; strengthen community conservation capacity in critical pathways; safeguard elephants; reduce conflict and increase local benefits.

GOALS

The overall goal of the meeting is to bring together community representatives, conservation organizations and government agencies in the Kenya-Tanzania borderland concerned with elephant conservation with the following aims in mind:

·       Assess the status and movements of elephant populations in the borderlands region.

·       Identify pathways needed to establish a viable interconnected elephant population.

·       Strengthen community conservation capacity in critical pathways, aimed at safeguarding elephants, reducing conflict and increasing local benefits.

·       Identify how government agencies, conservation organizations and communities can work collaboratively towards these ends.

Ongoing Projects:

Project Name: Rebuilding the Pride
Project Manager:  John Kamanga – SORALO (Coordinators:  Guy Western/Lily Maynard)
Funding From:  Cincinnati Zoo’s Angel Fund
Summary: Rebuilding the Pride aims to increase lion and other carnivore numbers across the South Rift, linking the Mara, Amboseli and Tsavo into a viable meta-population. The program centers on reducing human-wildlife conflict, preventing range fragmentation and maintaining healthy prey numbers.The project explores the basis of traditional practices among pastoralists that allow herders to coexist with wildlife and minimize conflict with predators. The program builds on the long-term research and community-based conservation programs of the Amboseli Conservation Program and the African Conservation Centre. It is a community program of the South Rift Association of Land Owners (SORALO).

Project Name:  Community-based Conservation Initiatives of the African Conservation Centre in Eastern Africa
Project Manager: Betty Buyu/Lucy Waruingi/David Western – African Conservation Centre (ACC)
Funding From:  Liz Claiborne Art Ortenberg Foundation
Summary: ACC and the South Rift Association of Landowners (SORALO) are building community-based organizations (CBOs) and conservancies across the South Rift, and linking Amboseli and Maasai Mara through the “Future of the Open Rangelands” program.  SORALO and ACC developed Lale’enok as the information, communications and planning hub for South Rift communities.

National Community Scouts Association - ACC has been a leader in developing community scouts in Kenya and beyond. The Amboseli Scouts Association employs and manages some 100 scouts and is among the most successful in Kenya. ACC is currently pursuing the formation of a National Community Scouts Association to offer a professional affiliation and provide support for scattered scouts associations.  

Kenya Rangeland Coalition - Starting in 2002, ACC began promoting regular learning exchanges between South West ranching associations in the US and pastoral communities in East Africa. The exchanges resulted in the workshop in Nairobi that brought together communities from Kenya, Tanzania and Ethiopia and representatives from ranging communities in the US. An ACC publication of the same title explores options for keeping the rangelands open and has had a large influence on land tenure and land use discussions in eastern Africa. The exchange also led to the formation of a Cattlemen’s Association under SORALO, aimed at improving livestock breeds for commercial sale and land health. More recently, ACC initiated the formation of a Kenya Rangeland Coalition (KRC). KRC will serve as an umbrella body for coordinating activities of rangelands communities, exchanging views and skills to improve the outlook for the rangelands and drawing on the support and expertise it would need in doing so.

Project Name: Amboseli Conservation
Project Manager:  David Western/Jeff Worden
Funding From:  Liz Claiborne Art Ortenberg Foundation
Goals of project:

- Monitor the Amboseli ecosystem and the post-drought changes in wildlife and livestock populations, human activity, herbivore-carnivore and human-wildlife interactions, vegetation recovery and changes and the recovery of habitat restoration plots
- Build up the local and national collaboration needed to restore the spatial and ecological resilience of Amboseli to future droughts and climate change.
- Develop the Amboseli Ecosystem Trust.
- Coordinate the LCAOF-initiated program on Land Fragmentation and Climate Change: Biodiversity and livelihoods in the Kenya-Tanzania Borderlands.
- Pursue the developments of the 2010 national workshop on Biodiversity, Land Use and Climate Change.

Project Name: Plan for the Development of a Platform to Support Assessment and Biodiversity Decision Making in East Africa
Project Manager:  Lucy Waruingi, ACC
Funding From:  JRS Foundation
Summary: The conservation of biological diversity is emerging as one of the gravest global challenges of the 21^st Century.  The rapid expansion of human population, coupled with burgeoning development and rising consumption, has caused a biodiversity crisis..  The project will intentionally seek out key biodiversity datasets and apply itself to robust open access platforms that support data acquisition, storage, analysis and wide application and use while maintaining interoperable standards to facilitate data exchange and scalability for application in East Africa. 

The project will provide baseline information on Kenya’s biodiversity, its importance nationally and globally, the threats it faces and the steps towards a national conservation framework and will provide vital information for research, policy development, planning and management

Project Name: GNU Project:  Wildebeest Forage Acquisition in Fragmented Landscapes Under Variable Climates
Project Manager:  Jeff Worden
Funding From:  Colorado State University
Summary: Droughts are projected to become more frequent and more severe in East Africa as climate changes. As forage production declines in drought, animals must move further afield to acquire the forage they need, and human­induced fragmentation may not allow those broader movements. We lack empirical functions that depict how rangeland fragmentation interacts with climatic variability and productivity to change large herbivore populations. We also lack robust models of how East African savannas will likely fragment in the future.

Project goals:

1) track the movements of GPS­collared wildebeest (Connochaetes taurinus) in three Kenyan conservation areas and their surrounding private and communal lands
2) compile maps of past and current fragmentation in the areas, and model potential future pathways of fragmentation using spatial logistic regression
3) parameterize an advanced multi­agent model that simulates local animal movements, energy dynamics, and population changes while including broader scale migratory patterns modeled using evolutionary computation
4) use the multi­agent model in a three­way factorial analysis to relate wildebeest population changes to fragmentation, forage productivity, and inter­annual variation in productivity associated with varying annual precipitation. We will assess the following hypotheses regarding effects of fragmentation and climate on the sensitivity (i.e., magnitude of decline) of wildebeest populations – H1: wildebeest will be more sensitive to fragmentation under increasing variability in inter­annual precipitation; and H2: wildebeest in areas of intermediate productivity will be more sensitive to fragmentation than in areas of very low or relatively high productivity.

Project Name: Environmental Scouts – Youth Program and Support for James Solitei’s University Education
Project Manager:  James Solitei
Funding From:  Bruce Ludwig
Summary: The Environmental Scouts program works to strengthen environmental education progress for equitable and sustainable environmental management choices at Imbirikani Group Ranch. This youth program is currently in four primary schools and involves more than 200 young Environmental Scouts.  The goals of the program are to educate, inspire, and empower school children, students and communities to protect the environment and to develop capacity building to influence and enhance change agents’ knowledge, skills, and attitudes and ultimately their practices, in order to enable them to cause similar impact on the community.

The Imbirikani Environmental Scouts program achieves its goals by providing action-oriented educational materials and curriculum for environmentally concerned schools and local communities. 

Many of the programs include: Environmental education field trips and field activities; Weekly environmental education; Video classes; Tree planting and care; and Community services.

Project Name: Water Catchment Installation Project for a Primary School in Elengata Enterit in South Rift
Project Manager:  SORALO – John Kamanga/Carissa Western
Funding From:  Third World Tech
Summary: The goal of this project is to provide clean and safe drinking water to the 700 children who attend the Elengata Enterit Primary School in the South Rift.  Before the project, the primary source of drinking water for these children was a stream which is contaminated by both people and livestock. There have been frequent outbreaks of dysentery and other such water borne diseases. This project was initiated in May of 2011 and the first major step was the purchase, transport and installation of gutters, tanks, facia board and all other materials necessary to harvest rainwater from five school buildings.

Project Name: Maasai Cultural Heritage Project
Project Manager:  TBD
Funding From:  TBD
Summary: The Maasai Heritage Program will mobilize communities in Kenya to revive and celebrate their common heritage through annual cultural festivals and to develop compatible cultural tourism in the region that brings benefits to the genuine custodians of their culture.  The mission is to gather sufficient material culture, art and traditional knowledge to launch a Maasai Festival in 2013 and create the ground swell for a heritage movement.

Thanks to popular culture and mass tourism, the Maasai have become the iconic face of Africa in recent decades.  Their image is displayed in brochures, magazines, and on billboards around the world. Despite their fame, the Maasai are fast losing their material culture and profound knowledge of livestock, environment and wildlife. Their culture is facing growing challenges from both outside and within as they embrace developments and formal education. The traditional rites of passage that pass Maasai cultural values and knowledge from one generation to another are waning.  The passing of traditional elders, a lack of documentation and rapid modernization are obliterating Maasai traditions and knowledge. Spurred by a burgeoning tourist market, non-Maasai vendors are pirating and eroding traditional crafts at the expense of Maasai artisans and communities.

With their culture at a crossroads and their traditions disappearing, the Maasai must act fast to preserve their heritage and make their communities the primary custodians and beneficiaries of their knowledge and art. There is need of the “Maasai” brand to be observed and conserved in a form that is true to traditional values and in way that can be learned and appreciated by the generations of Maasai to come.

Project Name: Conserving Vertebrate Biodiversity in the Face of Climate Change
Project Manager:  Walter Jetz/Yale University, David Western/ACC
Funding From: Liz Claiborne Art Ortenberg Foundation
Summary: This project focused on mapping existing data, species distribution modeling and analysis of vertebrate biodiversity in eastern Africa in the face of environmental change. A final outcome will be a multi-source geographic distribution database for the terrestrial vertebrate species (birds, mammals, amphibians, reptiles) of Eastern Africa, specifically Kenya and Tanzania. Anticipated results include a geographic distribution database for the terrestrial vertebrates of Kenya and Tanzania and species-level assessment of project impacts of climate change.