Our Conservation Work

It is clear to me that not many people know what I am doing here with TNC and how my time is occupied when we are not running around on safari taking great pictures of the kids with charismatic mega fauna.  Globally our mission is to protect land and water for people and nature.  We do this through a science based approach of defining the highest priority geographies and implementing the most strategic set of interventions in those places in a collaborative and results oriented approach. 

In Africa we have narrowed our focus a bit to concentrate our efforts on protecting priority communal lands and waters.  65% of the wildlife in Africa live outside of National Parks.  Many of the migrations and movement corridors for the wildlife that tourists come to see (which fuels these national economies) cross waters and lands that are unprotected – places where massive poaching and land use change threaten their survival. These lands and waters are outside of Government Protected Areas – often adjacent to National Parks -  but areas where people and wildlife coexist.  While many of the National Parks could arguably be managed better, for the most part they are in the right places and are being managed relatively well.  Our niche is to focus on these communal lands and waters and to increase benefit flow to people living here.  Conservation must pay to succeed.

Another key ingredient for improving the balance between people and nature in these communal lands and waters is the devolution of management. By supporting local communities, traditional authorities and improving resource tenure and decision making at the local level through the creation of community wildlife conservancies for example, we build an organic foundation for conservation from the ground up.  We also focus on improving policy and the enabling conditions for conservation from the top down.

OK – sorry – pretty theoretical.  If you are still reading you are wondering, yeah, but what does all that mean?

We work in Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Mozambique and Namibia – in all these places we have conservation projects with local partners that aim to improve the balance between people and nature as I described above. http://www.nature.org/ourinitiatives/regions/africa/wherewework/index.htm

In northern Kenya, our key partners are Lewa Wildlife Conservancy and the Northern Rangelands Trust. Lewa is a 62,000 acre private conservation reserve that is credited with saving Kenya’s black rhino population and hosts another 70 large mammal species.  We are helping to transfer Lewa from private individual ownership to a Kenyan registered conservation organization.  It is an incredibly important water and land resource for ecological connectivity and species diverstiy.  The Northern Rangelands Trust, is an umbrella organization that has 18 member community wildlife conservancies.  These conservancies employ 350 people across 3.5 million acres of semi-arid grassland. 

The community conservancies fill in the gaps between government protected areas and private conservation lands providing connectivity for elephant migration from the high elevation bamboo forests on Mt.Kenya north across the dry hot plains where samburu pastoralists have been grazing livestock for generations.  Prior to 2004 when Northern Rangelands Trust was formed, these communal lands provided no security for people or for wildlife.  Ethnic tension fueled by drought and poverty historically resulted in cattle raiding and armed conflict.  Today, the community wildlife conservancies are a model of success that enables local elders to write their own grazing bylaws, to get government recognition of their land, to have income from wildlife tourism (lodges), to have hope for a brighter future.  Wildlife numbers are increasing and people are seeing tangible benefits from conservation.  The cycle of resource degradation and poverty is being reversed slowly but surely.

greater kudu at West Gate community conservancy in Northern Kenya – a demonstration that wildlife and people can live compatibly.

Ok – but still – you are wondering, what does TNC bring to the picture and my job in particular?

TNC brings technical and financial support to the Northern Rangelands Trust.  We provide conservation planning, freshwater science, climate change science, mapping and GIS support, fundraising and organization capacity building expertise, policy and government relations capability.  Our job is to make our key partners as strong as possible – to help them overcome barriers so they can scale up their impact and have tangible lasting results. 

My job is to manage these projects – to identify and develop partner relationships (community and government), to define the project objectives, write the conservation business plans, hire local staff and ensure that our great TNC team is providing coordinated support as best we can.  I also help raise funds for these projects – funds from private individuals and foundations and from government sources. 

Like most things in life, you can’t do it alone and it the good things don’t happen quickly.  Outcomes come slowly and are build on trust and relationships.  Living here in Arusha has dramatically helped me understand the issues and develop lasting relationships.

We have other great projects in addition to the one in northern Kenya, but I’ll save that for another early morning coffee on the front porch.

Thanks for reading. Matt.