Mount Kenya Trust

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Mar 28 2008 | By: admin

We need help to ensure our Joint Wildlife Protection team can get off the ground properly. In April three community scouts will be trained up to work with the KWS and KFS (Kenya Forest Service) Rangers. The vehicle, tents and equipment are all ready and I am so excited that Edwin will finally be able to be employed by the Trust on a full time basis. His dedication to wildlife has been wonderful. Along with the work that Trust supported Bongo Survaillance team are doing on Mt Kenya we will have a much better way of reducing the amount of poaching on Mt Kenya and as a result we will hope to see much less suffering. We will need help to keep the project on the ground however and appeal to any organisations and individuals who can help us protect some the endangered species and reduce the amount of indiscriminate snaring that all wildlife falls victim to on Mt Kenya.

Over Easter I stayed with a friend on Lewa Wildlife Conservancy as I was in the region for work the week before. We approved the company who iwll build the fence for the elephant corridor which is an exciting step. I saw footage of elephants using the proposed route on Easter Monday which was really exciting as we can be more confident than ever that elephants are happy with our choice of route. As ever the well travelled ‘family’ accompany me on all these adventures and I was able to introduce Gizmo to his first Elephant and Rhino. He was suitably impressed. I travelled back to Nairobi yesterday and will be meeting with my Trustees tomorrow lunch time to update them on our progress.

Well it’s been a day since I wrote the above and my Trustees meeting went well. I’m back up to the mountain region tomorrow but this time to attend a wedding on a conservancy called Ol Pejeta. Convenient as I have a meeting on the Monday in Nanyuki. I’ll report back on everything next week, this time with pictures.

No responses yet

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Mar 20 2008 | By: admin

I am up north of Timau again (near the northern slopes of Mt Kenya) staying at Kisima Farm. Everyone here has always been very welcoming to me here, one of my Trustees, Martin Dyer, has lived and worked here all his life and his family have been a great support to the Trust. I’m staying with Sara and Charlie Dyer who have become good friends and have put me up more times than I can count. They have what I feel is the most idillic lifestyle though they work very hard for it. Their support for the communities in the area and their efforts to plant trees and assist the Trust give them more work than the running of the farm but it also gives them a lot of satisfaction. Kisima grows wheat and barley, has a horticultural operation (flowers and veggies) and also a growing forestry section to help take the pressure off timber resources. Kisima is shown in the ariel photo below in the foreground with Marania near the mountain and the mountain in the background.

Anyway I am here because I had a meeting with Kisima, Marania, a KWS representative and a Trustee to decide on who wins the contract for the elephant corridor fencing phase. Its so exciting for this to now be a reality. The corridor passes through Marania and Kisima Farms following a parallel route to the 10 to 4 mountain bike challenge to the south. This corridor is really a historic conservation effort for Kenya. It makes me very proud to have been able to be such a big part of it. The next step is to get the job for the underpasses tendered out. We have already surveyed the two sites. On completion the elephants will be using the corridor and avoiding two public roads by walking underneath them. Virgin Atlantic are sponsoring the cost of the underpasses. In the photo below Charlie Dyer (on the left) is seen on top of one side of the Nanyuki - Meru highway where the underpass will be built.

Always a sucker for the cute and cuddly I can’t resist finishing this post with the photos below. Those of you who read about Widget, a great companion to me for over 5 happy years will be pleased to hear that my heartbreak is healing with the help of Chalkie and my new addition which very close friends bought for me a couple of weeks ago. His name is Gizmo WingNut Weeks and he is already a big part of my life. The pictures below were taken last night by Sara Dyer whose Great Dane was fascinated by tiny Gizmo. Pippi was so gentle and playful it was like neither of them could see that there was such a massive size difference. Ahhh.

5 responses so far

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Mar 17 2008 | By: admin

The habitats the Trust is working so hard to conserve is more than a bid to save an area of outstanding beauty with an incredibly impressive number of species, some of which are listed as highly endangered. It is important to understand that there are few remaining catchment areas or water towers that provide Kenya with the water necessary to feed our people and economy. Kenya’s forests are the key to ensuring that the political stablity we hope has been restored will be beneficial to the future of Kenya’s people. Without environmental security that the forests of Mt Kenya provide, the stablity offered by any Government cannot provide it with the sustenance it needs long term. It is this point that I find so hard to get across to even the most educated of people. Many think there are bigger priorities in Kenya than wildlife or trees but the truth is, without them this country has a future akin to Ethoipia’s present. It doesn’t take much to understand that providing water catchment areas with protection provide us with the basics for food and hydroelectric power and therefore all we need to keep our nation heathy and adaptable.

The wheatlands in the picture above are an example of commercial agriculture reliant on the climate provided by Mt. Kenya. Another good example is the flower farms on the foothills of the Mountain on the Western slopes. These businesses are a big part of Kenya’s export economy and provide a great deal of employment and income but the story is much bigger than that. Two of Kenya’s most important rivers, the Ewaso Ngiro and the Tana Rivers supply millions of people with water for subsitance agriculture, and allow pasoralism in marginal areas. Not to mention the businesses in Nairobi and other towns reliant on the hydropower supplied by the Tana River and water supplies for drinking and washing along the Rivers and tributaries. To the North and East of the country these rivers flow for miles and miles and sustain people with crops and livestock from the North East of the country to the central highlands and the arid lands of Northern Kenya.

Encroachment into the forests and the problems that accompany such destruction is simply a destruction of the backbone of the most precious of Kenya’s resources. Helping the Trust to help Mt Kenya’s habitats and the Government agencies that work with us will help Kenya on many levels.

No responses yet

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Mar 03 2008 | By: admin

On Friday evening, exhausted and having caught flu I returned from a trip up north for meetings about the elephant corridor and a subsequently postponed Trustees meeting (a long story). So was having a little lie on Saturday morning when I got a call from Edwin - soon to be head of the community division of our Joint Wildlife Protection team. It was around 8:30 am and he had been informed about an abandoned baby elephant near where he lives in the Sagana Settlement Scheme area, just bordering the Mt Kenya National Reserve on the southwestern side of Mt Kenya.

It is unusual for a calf who is not hurt or has not fallen into a hole or a well to be separated from its family. However, in a few cases they might be ill and not strong enough to keep moving with a herd or the herd is forced to move so quickly through an area that know to be danagerous that a little one might not keep up or get stuck on the wrong side of a fence. I called the Senior Warden first to get permission for Edwin to take action and then made sure that the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust would be willing to help me organise getting the little calf to their HQ in Nairobi National Park. They are always ready to assist and immediately had a charter plane on standby in Nairobi to collect the elephant from the nearest airstrip at Nanyuki. The difficult task was down to Edwin - getting the elephant transported to Nanyuki which is a good 40 mins drive away. He managed to hire a pick up and collect some KWS rangers from their post at Kihari Gate. Together with the community they managed after several hours to load her in the pick up and cover her in a tarpaulin so that she would be less distressed.

Some hours after that first call from Edwin I was relieved to hear they were on their way to meet the plane with the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust team waiting for them. Arriving at the Airstrip the team gave the little ele water and then sedated her before loading her carefully onto the chartered plane.

Safely at the Trust where she now sleeps with experienced Keepers and spends her days walking out with other orphans, the Keepers at the Sheldrick Trust decided to name the 8 month old baby Kenya. She will remind us of the time a coalition was finally signed between the leaders of a country divided and held to ransome by greedy hardliners. It is a good time for all democratically minded people and a time of celebration for the solidarity that most Kenyans feel for one another. We think it is fitting that an elephant called Kenya will help us to remember be grateful for this time.

Edwin and I visited Kenya today. She is already socialising well with her peers and drinking the milk formula which she will need for another 2 and a half years. Kenya is the one in the blanket in the photos below. Edwin is in blue petting Kenya in the last photo. He accompanied little Kenya all the way to Nairobi from Mt Kenya to her new home. Thanks to the experience of the unbelievable team at the DSWT there is hope that Kenya can have a heathy and happy life and join other orphaned elephants who make it in the wild as a mature adult. Something we very much hope for Kenya the country.

11 responses so far