We have been working diligently over the past several months and have much to report in terms of fundraising efforts, new partnerships and online initiatives.

Jacob has been taking care of Amara in Kenya while I have been away.

A Couple Of Important Updates:

John Barfield Sr., founder of The Bartech Group, has offered to become an adviser to Amara.

We are most excited to announce that Mr. Barfield has asked world renowned artist Paul Collins, to create a painting of an elephant in distress for Amara to use in our marketing campaigns.

Mr. Barfield has previously worked on several projects in Africa, and we are tremendously grateful to Mr. Barfield for his time over the past several weeks, as well as his advice and support of Amara.

The law firm of Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone have agreed to handle our current legal requirements on a pro bono basis.  This will save considerable cost and ensure that donations to Amara are spent solely on our conservation efforts and current projects.  We are grateful!

John Carver and Mike Griffin have joined the Amara Board of Directors, and have been instrumental in creating Amara’s new website on which we are putting the final touches.

We will be updating the blog regularly and providing news on our current projects, photographs, updates from the field, and fundraising initiatives.

And yes, you can donate directly on the website!  Thank you!

Our support base here in the USA is growing, and that base is very important to our work in Africa. These are exciting growth times for Amara, and I very much appreciate your ongoing support and interest!

All my best to you,

Lori

Enjoy the photos!

Our guiding value is the autonomy of indigenous communities; our awareness that each community is unique and must find its own solutions to the problem of sustainability. Amara’s role is to provide information, alternatives, and opportunities in an atmosphere of openness, honesty, and cooperation among stakeholders based on trust and creativity.

Amara believes in the power of information. A healthy environment benefits humans and wildlife equally, and for one to thrive the other need not suffer.

Our Community Aims

• To enhance community welfare through the exploration and implementation of sustainable livelihoods.
• To enhance community effectiveness through a greater awareness of opportunities, a widened knowledge base and greater inter-community communication.
• To find solutions to human-wildlife conflict
• To encourage cooperation between local communities and governmental, non-governmental and private conservation stakeholders.

Our Environmental Aims

• To protect wildlife habitat from human encroachment
• To promote environmentally responsible land and resource use
• To help eradicate illegal bushmeat hunting and poaching of large animals
• To prevent the loss of migration corridors and dispersal areas

Methodology

With each of our two mobile teams, Amara brings the films of the African Environmental Film Foundation to local communities. Films are seen by audiences ranging from 300 to 1,000, and are both preceded and followed by informative, interactive discussions. Additionally, Amara arranges and sponsors larger, multi-community meetings to address broader community issues.

Our Achievements

Amara has brought environmental education to hundreds of communities in environmentally sensitive areas surrounding Kenya’s major national parks, both through film showings and broader community meetings on topics ranging from bushmeat and ivory poaching to ecotourism and sustainable livelihoods. We work to assist the people to obtain more sustainable livelihoods and alleviate poverty and human wildlife conflict.

Amara has brought local communities together with the Kenya Wildlife Service, the Community Wildlife Service, the Kenya Health Department, local and international NGOs and eco-sensitive private enterprise. These contacts have established, and in some cases renewed trust among these critical stakeholders, leading to more open communication and greater empowerment for all involved.

Amara was the catalyst for the creation of Mbulia Group Ranch, a newly formed twelve thousand acre community-owned wildlife conservancy on the border of the Tsavo National Parks in critical dry season elephant habitat.

Amara Conservation welcomes the addition of John Carver to our USA Board!

John is an entrepreneur who has been involved in many successful profit and non-profit start-ups.  He is co-founder of the Michigan League of Conservation Voters, and currently on their Advisory Council. He is also co-founder of the National Wildlife Federation President’s Council and the NWF’s Wolfpack.

He was one of the students we trained to gather seeds and make their own tree nurseries at Kajire secondary school. He took the idea very seriously and now has his own tree nursery at home. He also formed a group with the aim of changing the environment of Kajire by planting as many trees as they can and also informed us that as a group they are thinking of ways to help in educating other youths in their area so that they can change the attitude of cutting down trees for charcoal burning and to reduce the bush meat trade in the area.

Great work Joseph and the whole group!

Thank You Vanity Fair – Agony and Ivory

A compelling article about the current and dire situation for elephants and ivory poaching has been published in the August issue of Vanity Fair magazine. We hope that everyone will read it. The information contained in the article is something that everyone needs to read.

In 2008, post-election ethnic violence followed by the global recession halved tourism to Kenya, making the wildlife in the parks even harder to protect. Then, in 2009, one of the worst droughts in living memory hit much of the country. More than 400 elephants in Amboseli died. The Maasai lost many of their cows and are still struggling, while the price of ivory is higher than ever, so increasing numbers of them are risking the misfortune that killing an elephant could bring on their families, according to their traditional thinking, and are getting into poaching. There are brokers just across the Tanzania border who are paying cash—around $20 a pound—for raw ivory and selling it to the Chinese. Or perhaps there is a series of transactions, a series of middlemen, but ultimately what is not being picked up by the Kenya Wildlife Service’s sniffing dogs at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, in Nairobi, is making its way by all kinds of circuitous routes to China, where raw ivory is now fetching $700 or more a pound. Ninety percent of the passengers who are being arrested for possession of ivory at Jomo Kenyatta are Chinese nationals, and half the poaching in Kenya is happening within 20 miles of one of the five massive Chinese road-building projects in various stages of completion.

There had been almost no poaching around Amboseli for 30 years before a Chinese company got the contract to build a 70-mile-long highway just above the park. Since the road crews arrived, in 2009, four of Amboseli’s magnificent big-tusked bulls have been killed, and the latest word is that the poachers are now going after the matriarchs—a social and genetic disaster, because elephants live in matriarchies, and removing the best breeders of both sexes from the gene pool could funnel the Amboseli population into what is known as an “extinction vortex.”

…read the full article.

Amara Conservation is working tirelessly to save African elephants and stop ivory poaching.

There was the World Environment Day celebrated at Moi Stadium and at Mwangea Primary School, with film shows and town cleanups, tree planting, and a good community turnout.  He has also worked showing films in all the schools and communities in conjunction with the Voi Youth Forum and with Ingrid Marie Relling, a Norwegian teacher at Voi Primary School.

The Voi Youth Forum and Ms. Relling are working to help schools to form Environment Clubs to raise interest and concern amongst the students. It is such a good idea and Amara Conservation is happy to assist in any way we can.

Our first field projector seems to have reached the end of it’s very useful and long life (10 years is pretty amazing given what it has gone through), and a new one is on it’s way.

Burning Ivory In Kenya

I attended the ivory burning at Manyani KWS Training College in Kenya on 20th July.

The event was headed by the President Honorable Mwai Kibaki who burnt 5 tonnes of ivory. I could not take photos for it was not allowed, and the congregation was a bit far from where the burning was done. It was very moving to see all those tusks burning – as they represent the lives of so many elephants.

Lost for what?

For trinkets for people far away who seem to have no concern for the well-being of our wildlife in our country.

I worked for many years with elephants at the Sheldrick Orphanage, I know several elephants personally, and I only hope and pray that what was done today has some serious impact on the ivory trade.

It has to stop. We will keep working to stop the killing happening on the ground here.

Education and Conservation in Kenya

We have been receiving so many requests from communities all around the area and I truly hope that we can get to all of them. This month the chief from Mwakitau called to ask for film shows on conservation education, fencing, and environmental degradation.

He asked us to do some desnaring in the area as well, which is interesting. I believe that having local leaders asking us for our services shows the need for what we do in a powerful way. Years ago it was conservation groups and organizations who wanted what Amara Conservation does, in order to reach residents – now it’s the residents who want it.

That is compelling.

This month I also traveled to Nairobi to collect a laptop and camera, which I will be working with in the field. Christian del Valle donated the computer to Amara, and our UK Chairman Heidi donated the camera, for both of which we are very grateful! Lori gave me an introduction to the Mac computer, and while I have never used one before, I am finding that I really like it. Nana Woodley is a professional photographer who spent time teaching me ways to use the camera, settings, exposure and framing, etc.

Thank you Nana.

I also met with Nana in her role as Conservancy Manager to discuss progress on the Mbulia Group Ranch conservancy and will work with her to make sure that all the documents are provided to them to allow the agreement process to proceed.

Last but not least, we met with the Voi Primary School teachers to talk about the upcoming Environment Day which they asked Amara Conservation to assist with. This will be held in Moi Stadium in Voi and will hopefully have a huge turnout.

How To Stop Deforestation in Kenya

One thing that keeps coming up in the press here in Africa, if not in a lot of places worldwide, is the issue of deforestation in Kenya. It’s a huge problem here where many rural people need wood for fuel, and contributes enormously to drought, amongst all the other harmful effects of loss of trees that are commonly known such as soil erosion.

Kenya has less than 1.6% forested land, markedly lower than what is considered acceptable at 10%.

Many people talk about “tree planting or tree seedling projects”.

What about our idea of teaching schoolkids to collect their own seeds, make seedbeds from local materials, sprout seedlings, then transplant and care for the trees until they grow?

For tree planting projects, one needs to get seedlings, distribute them, then get people to keep the trees protected from pests/goats/diseases until they mature. This costs a lot of money and requires good organization. It is also much more difficult to get someone to care for something that is given to them than for someone to plant, grow and nurture something of their own. We were able to do a very successful, small pilot project in Sagalla near Voi.  We now need funding to make this teaching available to more schools, teachers, and communities all over the region.

The cost of teaching a group these skills is minuscule compared to the cost of implementing the planting of trees someone else has grown! And, the benefit to having taught a skill to so many people has a lifelong benefit to that person, their area, and the protection of the planet.

Here are some photos taken at the same schools 12-16 months after the initial training:

We can see trees that have really grown!