Conservation in Schools Education Programme: Community led nurseries

A reforestation project. Centres in the Mara developed seed banks and tree nurseries accessible to local people. Here seedlings were grown and provided to the community member interested in in promoting the protection and rehabilitation of Kenya’s depleted forest areas.

The Greater Masai Mara Community Scout Programme

The programme in the Masai Mara National Reserve in Kenya was funded by The Darwin Institute for the Survival of the Species and organised by The Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology, University of Kent. Some 70% of Kenya's wildlife exists outside protected areas. Its survival depends on tolerance of wildlife and sustainable management of natural resources by the local communities who suffer the costs of living with wildlife. The Maasai communities of the Greater Mara Ecosystem have expressed a desire and willingness to develop their capacity to manage and protect the natural resources among which they live outside the Masai Mara National Reserve (MMNR).

The programme trained Kenyans to research and monitor human-wildlife conflict in the Masai Mara ecosystem, focusing on three main areas: the factors affecting the recovery of the black rhino population, the impact of tourism, and humanelephant conflict. Community based natural resource management for the conservation of Kenya's wildlife, forests, water resources, coral reefs and rangelands are becoming increasingly more critical as these resources are highly threatened.

The purpose of the programme was to empower Maasai communities throughout the greater Mara ecosystem to monitor and protect natural resources and manage humanwildlife conflict, and thereby improve local livelihoods, through the development of a sustainably funded community wildlife scout association. The main aim was local capacity building to monitor and protect biodiversity. The programme helps communities understand the importance of their environment and the resources on which they rely by promoting sustainable conservation based development. The mara is constantly under considerable threat from illegal hunting for the bushmeat trade. The project I was involved in concentrated on anti poaching operations, wildlife monitoring, preventing human wildlife conflict, bush fires and forest destruction. Scouts also served as an outreach function, informing the wider communityon conservation and land management issues.