Field Blog by International Intern, Louise Warden I’ll be honest… I was scared for tonight, just wanted it to be over already! We all suited up in our bee keeper suites with funny netted head pieces, I felt more like a Teletubbies reject than a professional bee keeper. We all spent ages checking our suites for holes and taping up any possible routes in for the angry African honey bees…
Field Blog by International Intern, Louise Warden The day had finally arrived… I couldn’t have been more excited, today is the day I get to visit Tsavo East National Park, Kenya with the Save the Elephants team. We got to the Voi gate at 7am and patiently waited for our tickets to be issued but then… all hell breaks loose! A troop of vervet monkeys come charging through and swing straight…
Field Blog by International Interns, Louise Warden and Emilia Malmstrom So, although we have some very important researchers in camp, our beloved dogs… and Junior, are the stars of the show. The camp wouldn’t be the same without them! Firstly, we have the gorgeous Winky, named after the house elf in Harry Potter for her magnificently oversized ears. She’s the lady of the camp so is far less smelly than…
Field Report by International Intern, Tatiana Chapman Something has been brewing in camp and it’s not been exactly appetising. The smelly elephant repellent has come to Lower Sagalla and last month, we were busy mixing up this, shall we say, exotic substance. Ernest Oniba from WildAid Africa came down from Uganda for his third visit in order to start a pilot project to see whether this unique mixture can help…
Blogpost by Kenyan Intern, Jocelyn Wela Nature conservation can cause conflicts when there are incompatible interests in environmental resources. This mostly occurs when conservation interferes with the locals economic activities (Joas et al., 2012). National parks and related forest conservation programs generally originate in national and international centers, that are established where people live and use resources, and often impose livelihood costs on rural people (Schelhas et al., 2010). However,…
Field Report by International Intern, Tatiana Chapman This project is about more than just elephants and bees. Although it’s primary focus is on bee hive fences, the project has necessarily grown and developed to include so many more facets. Conservation rarely nowadays stands alone as primarily focused on animal welfare. Instead a more holistic perspective is adopted and the whole environment and all living things in it are taken into…
Field Report by International Intern, Tatiana Chapman I first arrived on the 19th September to a mystically barren landscape. Thorny grey bushes entangled themselves across the deep red soil and dust coated the landscape. Rain had not been seen for a while and the short rains were due soon. Water was scarce and hard to come by for trees and animals alike. It’s hard to say whether after a week…
Field Report by Beehive Fence Research Assistant, Derick Wanjala Mwakoma, Mwambiti and Kajire villages in Sagalla ward, Taita Taveta county are hotspot areas for African elephants. Elephants come from Tsavo East national park via Ndara Ranch to the communities for crop raiding. The Elephants and Bees Research center based in Mwakoma works with these villages to protect their farms from crop-raiding elephants by using beehive fences. The projects work with…
Elephants and Bees Environmental Education Program Field Report by International Intern Annemarie Russ When I walked down the street where the bus was waiting for the kids early in the morning I was greeted by a feeling of excitement and lots of laugher. The kids were eager to start their trip to Taita Hills Sanctuary and so was I. The private reserve is located close to Tsavo West National Park…
Field Report by Community, Livelihoods and Education Officer, Victor Ndombi Our beehive fence farmers and Kileva primary farm club students visited the Mombasa Agricultural Show, from the 4th-8thSeptember. The purpose of the trip was to equip farmers and students with different agricultural techniques that could boost food security which is in line with government’s Big Four agenda and second SDG ‘No hunger’. Farming in Sagalla has been a mountain to…