African People and Wildlife Fund

PLEASE NOTE: this post contains some graphic images at the end.

Warriors for Wildlife are young Maasai men selected and trained by the African People and Wildlife Fund to help promote the coexistence of people and wildlife. Some work as watchmen—monitoring lion-livestock conflicts, helping pastoralists find lost cattle, and preventing lion killings. Others are involved in protecting habitats, preserving the lion’s wild prey, and monitoring the wildlife populations roaming outside national parks. Together, they are an important force for conservation in the Maasai Steppe.

Elvis Kisimir, a Warrior for Wildlife, spends much of his time working with local community members to improve the strength of their cattle corrals by installing APW’s unique Living Walls, environmentally-friendly livestock enclosures that keep cattle safe from lions and lions out of the way of Maasai spears. He also monitors big cat-livestock conflicts across a wide expanse of the Maasai Steppe with a team of local assistants. When one assistant received a report of a potential lion poisoning in a neighboring village, Elvis quickly arrived on the scene to take stock of the situation.

The site was disturbing, strewn with the carcasses of vultures that had fed on the poisoned remains of a cow. Taking a closer look at the remains, Elvis found evidence of the purple granules of Furadan – an agrochemical readily used for poisoning big cats and other carnivores in East Africa.

A quick discussion with his assistants revealed that lions killed the cow; the livestock owner laced its remains with the poison in hopes that the lions would return to feed again. Fortunately, Elvis’ team arrived before the lions. And they quickly went to work burning the carcass to prevent any further deaths.

This is just one of several recent episodes in which Elvis and his team have saved lions from a cruel end in the Maasai Steppe. Incredible Warriors for Wildlife, they give us hope for the future. Focused on the present Elvis remarks, “We are working to increase the number of Living Walls currently in place. If we would have reached this community, there wouldn’t be the need to use poison to kill lions and vultures. We could have prevented the conflict in the first place. That makes sense to me.”

Working to prevent conflicts between people and lions is a major component of the African People & Wildlife Fund’s Maasailand Lion Conservation Program, supported in part by the National Geographic Big Cats Initiative. There are currently 100 Living Walls installed in the Maasai Steppe, daily preventing lion-livestock conflicts and helping to avoid such terrible events as witnessed by Elvis and his team.

A great endorsement for Living Walls from the Maasai ladies of Loibor Siret! Click on the link below to read how our Living Walls are helping women in unexpected ways while also preventing conflict between people and lions and protecting critical habitat! We hope you “like” this post!

http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2012/03/09/maasai-women-speak-out-for-living-walls/

We are thrilled to announce that we achieved our 2011 goal of 100 Living Walls in the Maasai Steppe. APW’s Living Walls are now protecting approximately 25,000 head of livestock on a nightly basis and positively impacting nearly 2000 community members.

With livestock safe at night, reduced lion-livestock conflict means better outcomes for the big cats. It’s a win-win-win scenario that keeps cattle safe from lions, lions out of the way of Maasai spears and local habitat intact. Many thanks to all our partners, supporters and local community members who helped us to achieve this important milestone for lion and cheetah conservation and the improved coexistence of people and big cats. We would like to extend special recognition to the Regina Bauer Frankenberg Foundation, the Disney Worldwide Conservation Fund and the National Geographic Big Cats Initiative for their critical support of this work.

To see recent photos of lions, wild dogs and other large carnivores in the Maasai Steppe, please visit us on Facebook.

Living Walls positively impact women and children, reducing time spent maintaining corrals and keeping the family safe at night.!

APW’s 2012 Noloholo Environmental Scholars were recently announced.  We have four new scholars this year bringing us to a total of 12 scholars from the Maasai Steppe with full, six-year scholarships to private school!

In December of every year, graduating seventh grade members of APW’s wildlife clubs have the opportunity to compete for a limited number of Noloholo Environmental Scholarships. Successful candidates excel in several areas, including nationally and locally administered exams, interviews, and of course, they must demonstrate a real interest in the environment. All our scholars come from remote villages where access to a secondary school (high school) education is limited.

Our scholars need more sponsors. Please consider contributing to the scholarship fund. For more information, contact APW at info@afrpw.org or donate now and indicate Noloholo Environmental Scholarship Fund. Thank you!

2012 Noloholo Environmental Scholars

We hope you enjoy reading about our latest news and achievements featuring Noloholo environmental summer camps, World AIDS day, environmental scholarships, lions, cheetahs and Living Walls, community-led conservation in the Maasai Steppe and much more…

Click here for the APW Fall Newsletter 2011.pdf

Dr. Lichtenfeld recently had the honor of presenting her talk “Warriors for Wildlife: Saving Lions on the Maasai Steppe” at TEDxJacksonHole. We hope you will watch and learn about our innovative Living Walls project!

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. TEDxJacksonHole was sponsored by the Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival.

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We hope you enjoy this interview with our human-wildlife conflict officer, Elvis Kisimir, on National Geographic’s News Watch. Congratulations Elvis – you really do a wonderful job!

Interview with Elvis Kisimir, Maasai Warrior for Wildlife

At our Noloholo Environmental Center, APW recently introduced natural resource management action planning to community members in the Maasai Steppe. In collaboration with The Nature Conservancy, a three day workshop was held for 37 local people from the village of Loibor Siret. By the end of the workshop, seven strategies including improved water, livestock and wildlife management were identified by the participants for action. A new committee, called Reto-o-Reto or “interdependency” in the Maasai language, was established to move the initiative forward. We look forward to working with this new committee to help them in their efforts to conserve the natural resources of the magnificent Maasai Steppe.

Participants at the Noloholo Environmental Center:

The other day we were conducting a wildlife count with the Loibor Siret village game scout team and both groups out counting were lucky enough to find cheetahs. While the first group’s cheetah was wary, the second team was able to spend time with two cheetahs while they fed on an impala kill. Back at Noloholo, we were able to confirm from the photos that these are two new cheetahs for Loibor Siret. A very exciting find!

The cheetahs rest after feeding on the impala, and then head off to find some more shade…..

The sound of children’s laughter is a welcome treat at the Noloholo Environmental Center in the great Maasai Steppe. This week marks the first of our environmental summer camps for Maasai primary schoolchildren living near Tarangire National Park. 20 of our top wildlife club members spend a week with us, living at the center and learning about their environment while having fun, fun, fun! They are joined by four of our Noloholo Environmental Scholars (in secondary school) who act as peer leaders to the group. Activities include bird watching, wildlife counts, camera trapping, hiking, singing and lots of games. For updates and more pictures of the camps, visit APW’s Facebook page.

Playing Animal Charades