Community & Conservation Partnerships
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| Tanya Carr-Hartley and the rest of the Rhino Rouge team, who participated in the 2010 Rhino Charge charity event. |
Rhino Ark
Rhino Ark is a foundation whose mission is to build a 320km game proof fence around the entire Aberdare conservation area. The Aberdare range is covered in indigenous forest, containing a diverse variety of game, but most re-known for it's Rhino strongholds. The Rhino Ark set out to build a fence around the Aberdare conservation area, intended to keep poachers out and animals who were threatening crops close by, in.
"Not only could poachers have easy access, but game was able to maraud at night into bordering farms, destroying crops, creating fear and loss both of revenue and on occasion lives too. This situation fueled an already volatile community who saw no value in conserving either the wildlife or the forest habitat" (Quote Colin Church, Tanya's father and chairman of Rhino Ark). The Rhino Ark fence has a forecasted cost of $4 million to build and $2.5 million to establish a trust to maintain it. Since it's inception in 1988, it has raised $1.5 million.
We can arrange a personalized trip to the Aberdare Conservation Area and the fence for anyone who would have an interest in seeing this projects success.
Mikey and Tanya Carr-Hartley take part every year in separate Rhino Charge Teams, where 55 teams of drivers and crew navigate some of Kenya's most remote and spectacular locations in the shortest distance around a course only revealed 12 hours prior to the event, the purpose raising money for the Rhino Ark.
www.justgiving.com/rhinochargecar17
www.justgiving.com/rhinochargecar42
www.rhinorouge.com
WWF Kiunga Marine National Reserve
Kiunga Marine National Reserve was established as a protected area in 1979, and the following year designated a UNESCO biosphere Reserve with the adjacent Dodori Reserve. In 1996 World Wildlife Fund for Nature and Kenya Wildlife Service formed a working partnership to develop long term management strategies integrating conservation and development priorities.
The Kiunga Marine National Reserve is a globally outstanding marine and coastal resource. Biologically rich marine habitats, such as mangroves, sea grass beds and coral reefs are under threat from destructive and unsustainable fishing practices, coastal erosion, tourist development, pollution and coral bleaching.
The Kiunga Management team seeks sustainable and equitable methods of using the reserve's resources in collaboration with a wide range of partners and stakeholders, including the Kenya Wildlife Service, Fisheries department, district officials, and the local communities to safeguard the areas exceptional marine resource for future generations.
The majority of the people living around KMNR are Bajuns-a mix of Swahili, Arab, and Bantu ancestry- whose traditional livelihoods include fishing, mangrove harvesting, subsistence farming and animal husbandry.
Education and involvement of the community is crucial to the sustainability of the reserve's marine resources.
We take a huge interest in this project and its success. It is a project with many horizons and if you are visiting the Northern Coast of Kenya on your safari we recommend you see it. The reefs, the turtle project, ecohandicrafts ,communities and education programs make staying in the area very much more interesting.
David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust.
For those of you who would like to foster an orphan elephant, this is an incredibly successful project. Orphaned elephants found in East Africa are brought to a central base in Nairobi (the lucky ones!) and then reared here by Daphne Sheldrick and her wonderful team of devoted handlers. These elephants have lost their family either by marauding crops, by poachers, or by some unforeseen event.
Here at the Sheldrick Trust, they are taken care of and then reintroduced into the wild in Tsavo National Park. As you can imagine the milk powder alone required by these animals is a large task.
We encourage our clients to visit this wonderful success story and even perhaps to foster an elephant. Once fostered you will be updated on the life of this elephant, and get to know its intricacies, a life-story you will learn to love, elephants being unique in their family contact and love.
The project doesn't only deal with elephants, but rhino and the occasional warthog too!
