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My Trip to the Kasigau Corridor: Seeing a REDD+ Project in Action
Guest blog written by Vibeka Mair, a Senior Reporter for Responsible Investor who visited our Kasigau Corridor REDD+ Project in February 2018. Jacob Kazungu has been disabled since birth. Now 72, he walks with a stick and has shakes when he stands up. But he insists he will stand as he presents the work of his community group in rural Kenya. The Buguta Disabled Group supports the disabled and parents of the disabled with a place to come to every day, conversation and most importantly a form of income through the making of toys, jewelry and baskets sold in places including popular fashion website ASOS. “We want to be self-reliant and not begging,” he says. Buguta Disabled…
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Against All odds: Janet Wanjala’s Determination to Succeed
By Jane Okoth If you happen to pass by Wildlife Works’ organic greenhouses, chances are that you will notice Janet Elina Wanjala. The shy petite woman is always busy; if she is not taking care of the tree seedlings, or harvesting jojoba seeds, she is packing the soil into the potting bags. Janet’s day begins with a 2-hour walk from her home to Wildlife Works, ready to commence her usual duties. On this particular day, she is helping out peeling the mango seeds for drying and replantation. “I take my work seriously, with much dedication and hard work because I find morale and stimulation in it,” she says. According to…
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WHY BUYING NOTHING THIS HOLIDAY WILL SAVE THE PLANET
A thoughtful gift is something someone could remember for a lifetime. We all appreciate the loving intentions that gifting carries. But the commercialization of holidays has added not only stress but tons of waste to gift giving. Wildlife Works protects the most remote forests in the world and we can’t ignore the impact of our consumption on the health of our planet. This holiday season, we at Wildlife Works are going to slow down consumption in order to give back to our earth and here’s why it matters. The explosive growth and globalization of the apparel industry has accelerated pollution everywhere. This industry is one of the top five greenhouse…
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In Kenya, a Transformation in Shades of REDD by Amy Yee
Originally published by Undark. CASE STUDIES/News & Features In Kenya, a Transformation in Shades of REDD Communities near the Rukinga Sanctuary once seemed locked on a path of resource decimation. But here, at least, a global conservation plan is working. 07.28.2017/ BY Amy Yee HERE IS WHAT a dead elephant looks like: Rib bones longer than my arm scattered across red dirt. Over here is a lower jaw, beached and desolate like the broken hull of a ship. Over there is the massive boulder of its skull. Behind the gaping eye sockets is a web of porous bone, a hideous honeycomb. Shreds of gray skin are strewn across the soil like filthy rags,…
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Teaching Climate Change in Rural Kenya
This is a gust blog from our media intern, Lucy Arndt, hailing from the U.K. Contact ask (at) wildlifeworks.com for our many internship opportunities in Kenya and the Congo. One of the most surreal things I’ve experienced since arriving in Kenya was being part of a teaching session on climate change with village elders – held entirely in Swahili. In my first week here, I accompanied the Community Relations Department of Wildlife Works on a series of community visits to the rural communities that are part of the project area. One of these was a focus group discussion with village elders (clan leaders, school leadership, etc.) to explain the project…
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Wildlife Works Scholarship Recipient Joins the Team
“I get satisfaction in my job through putting perfection into my work,” says Zanira Kasyoka, one of the lucky recipients of a Wildlife Works’ scholarship that fully sponsored her secondary education. Her talents and hard work stood out and she is now fully employed as an assistant in the Wildlife Works’ carbon-neutral, eco-factory office. Meet Zanira, first a scholarship recipient now an employee Zanira comes from a humble background in the village of Itinyi, Taita Taveta County, within our project area in Kenya. She was brought up by a single mother together with her elder sister. She now lives with her mother and grandmother, as her sister has married and moved…
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Agriculture Mentor Program for Local Community Groups
Wildlife Works runs an organic greenhouse on-site at our Kasigau Corridor REDD+ Project in Kenya. Here, we raise indigenous tree seedlings that we donate to the community to help reforestation efforts as well as test growing techniques for local growing conditions. One of our main objectives is to run tours and training for anyone who wants to learn alternative methods for growing in the semi-arid, drought conditions of the Tsavo region. Some of the best practice growing methods we teach include water conservation through techniques such as vertical farming (where water trickles vertically down a pod watering more plants rather than draining away into the soil) and introducing people to…
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Motivational Speakers Inspiring Local School Kids
Wildlife Works runs a program of education initiatives for youth within our Kasigau Corridor REDD+ Project area. We strongly believe that children are ambassadors for change and for environmental stewardship and we work hard to empower them to do so. One of the programs we run is a series of motivational speakers that deliver talks to local students. They are individuals from the community who have an inspiring story to tell and lessons to share with youth. A motivational talk given under a neem tree at Marungu Primary School Since starting in 2014, we have held motivational talks at 16 schools, reaching well over 1,000 students. The aim is to…
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Changing Kenya’s Landscape for Wildlife and Jobseekers
Changing Kenya’s Landscape for Wildlife and Jobseekers Published in the The Opinion Pages on NY Times By Amy Yee JUNE 8, 2016 RUKINGA SANCTUARY, Kenya — Twenty years ago, this wildlife corridor in southern Kenya was in jeopardy. A scarcity of jobs in this impoverished, arid landscape meant people were hunting wild giraffe and antelope for meat, and chopping down trees to make charcoal. With fewer trees, desertification loomed. Water was so precious that local cattle herders lit fires at water holes to keep giraffes and zebras from drinking. The animals had less vegetation to eat and less forest cover. Cutting down trees combined with poaching decimated wildlife in this…
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World Environment Day Celebrations: Go Wild for Life
Happy World Environment Day! Each year this United Nations day is celebrated on 5th June to raise awareness on taking action to protect nature. The 2016 theme was ‘Go Wild for Life’ promoting zero tolerance for the illegal wildlife trade. World Environment Day parade in Taita Taveta County Wildlife Works took part in the celebrations in Taita Taveta County in Kenya, where the 2016 theme particularly resonates. Kenya’s wildlife is severely affected by the illegal wildlife trade. It is estimated that each year around 30,000 elephants are killed worldwide as a result of poaching and the illegal ivory trade. Grevy’s Zebra, which are found on our Rukinga Sanctuary in Kenya,…