Happy Thanksgiving..... much to be grateful for...

Happy Thanksgiving to all our American Friends ......and a reminder to ourselves that we have so much to be grateful for this year. After all these years when our friends in America have probably become fed up with us moaning about endless droughts and the ensuing hardships in the community (...remember 2009 when 80% of cattle died..) In 2011 we have to remind ourselves daily to be grateful for wonderful rainfall.. since March we have not had to worry about empty dams and water tanks and November is proving to be the best rain season that the community can remember for many years.

The conservancy looks stunning with waving grass more redolent of the Masai Mara than of these semi arid lands. Whilst it is somewhat more challenging hunting for the game in these conditions it is certainly there..and at least elephants are always easy to spot... yesterday we stopped counting at 300 and this Greater Kudu was spotted in the morning 'drive' to work ....

It was also the first time in six years that I have spent most of the morning being stuck in the mud... but am certainly not complaining as the sun was out and it is amazing how many friends you make along the way when you are trying to dig yourself out!

So if next year drought bites again, we will look back to this blog and remember that we are not always crying drought....

Water.. Water ... Water...and Water Holes...

After six years of struggling with a cycle of droughts we are now swimmingly enjoying one of the wettest rainy seasons the Kijabe Group Ranch has ever seen... as rains sweep across kenya. The conservancy has never looked better. In our strategy to build more dams, to keep elephants out of the community dams and mitigate the conflicts they cause there, last month we embarked on a major new dam project.

As the workforce is now underway constructing the seven metre (yes METRE!!) wall for this latest dam, their biggest challenge is not to drown in the ever deepening lake! Enormous thanks to recent volunteer Audrey and her Great Friends for their fund-raising for this project... and to Derek for his fund raising AND very useful technical support. the rain is also working to our advantage in having dispersed our resident 80 elephants further north .. allowing the workforce to get on uninterrupted .....

Ol Lentille Conservancy Part 2: Creating Conservation

Part 2 of John's conservation story...

Under the agreement between Regenesis Ltd and the landowners (Kijabe and Nkiloriti Group Ranches), fees became payable immediately, even in the absence of a lodge or any guests. So the “economic engine” of the project started up early- the community gained financially just from Regenesis being there, and more so when the lodge was complete and guests began to arrive.

All the while, since 2000, the community had successfully excluded its own livestock from the conservation area and had eliminated poaching. Unfortunately neighbouring communities’ cattle were not so respectful, and the community had not enough resources and organisation to exclude them from the area. When John and Gill arrived in late 2005, it was obvious that the land was still being grazed on- ‘bomas’ were visible, you often saw Samburu herdsmen in the conservancy with their cattle and youngsters with sheep and goats. They knew they were not meant to be there and would run if you tried to talk to them, but always crept back in to the conservancy.

Cattle were a frequent sight in the conservancy in
2005-6 and still try to return if drought gets bad

With the help of the world-famous Lewa Conservancy, John and his Head Ranger, Sergeant Samal Kimorgo (more commonly known as ‘Kilo 1’, his radio call-sign), turned the volunteers into an organized, trained, disciplined, well-equipped, uniformed, and paid security force. Pretty soon all livestock were being properly excluded from what had now become the Ol Lentille Conservancy.

Ol Lentille Conservancy Ranger at an Outpost. Teams of Rangers
rotate on Outpost duty in various remote parts of the conservancy

You may be asking why it was necessary to drive livestock out of the area. After all, cattle are the prized possessions of the tribesmen. Well, it’s fairly simple. The land had to rest. It was almost exhausted. There was no grass-cover with resulting loss of top-soil and huge erosion gullies. The soil had become capped with a hardened crust so any rainfall just ran off it. Because the land was permanently hot, rainfall was less likely. Invasive plant species, unpalatable to either livestock or wildlife, which thrive in poor soils had started to take over.

Opuntia, an invasive species which thrives in degraded soil

Today, after 5 years of dedicated hard work, and even with 2 extreme drought years in that period (yes inter-drought frequency is decreasing – climate change is upon us here- it is also becoming more unpredictable, not like the El Niño/El Niña’s of old), the Ol Lentille Conservancy has abundant grass cover and the invasive species are dying out as soil quality improves, indigenous plant species thrive and smother, wildlife grazes and fertilizes the soil, and rainfall increases. Remarkably, since the water table has risen, a spring, long dead, has come back to life, and is a major magnet for wildlife.

Elephants in Ol Lentille Conservancy, 2010

Next week, we get into the science of conservation, showing how the Lentille conservation strategies can be extended and used to bring even more benefit to the communities here.

Greater Kudu in Ol Lentille Conservancy, 2009

Ol Lentille Conservancy Part 1: The beginnings

Welcome to Part 1 of this 5-part series from Lentille director, John. John is passionate about all things conservation and development, but mainly about how conservation is done. This blog will tell the Lentille story and explain the strategy taken and how it benefits the community in a fair, successful, sustainable way.

In this weekly blog series I’m going to tell the story of how 20,000 acres of semi-arid land in the north of Laikipia, a district of Kenya, was brought back from the brink of destruction by a desperate, but conservation-minded community of Maasai and Samburu people.

In the appalling drought year of 2000, 80% of Maasai and Samburu tribesmen’s livestock had died. These already poor communities were on the edge of starvation. Livestock dependency had caused this (remoteness, tradition and lack of access to services meant other livelihoods were not considered), as well as ruthless over-grazing. How would it be possible to survive and make money out of their land if livestock was going to be such a risky investment?

 

The community decided to put some of its land into conservation for wildlife, in the hope that they might get some tourism income out of it. The African Wildlife Foundation - AWF supported their efforts and gave conservation advice. In fact the community of Kijabe Group Ranch set aside for conservation, and stopped all grazing on, a whole one third of their land: 5000 acres. 15 men of the community volunteered, for no reward, to protect it from livestock incursion and poachers.

In 2003, the construction of a tourism property was started, but the project failed, and building was halted.

View of the Ol Lentille Conservancy, 2006

In 2005 Regenesis Limited, a Kenyan company owned by British social investors John & Gill Elias made a 25 year agreement with the community to manage conservation and tourism on their behalf. Regenesis had been set up specifically to invest in, donate to, and manage community-based conservation tourism. Crucially, Regenesis passed ownership of the $2 million lodge it constructed during 2006 to the community. Stories of exploitation and dispossession of communities by investors abound in East Africa. This was not to be one of them- the community would be the owners and the beneficiaries.

The 'Library' at the Sanctuary at Ol Lentille

Find out next week how the community made a success of their conservancy, and the benefits it has brought.