The term “water tower” may conjure an image of a tall steel structure with a large bulbous top. But is also applies to natural features, such as mountains or highlands, that collect water from rain or snow and release that water through rivers or underground flows.

Kenya’s 18 water towers, all mountains or mountain ranges, cover only a tiny percentage of the country’s landmass but provide the source for almost all of Kenya’s renewable water supply.

In Big Life’s area of operation, the Chyulu Hills is one of these. The hills are a natural feature that cause huge amounts of rain to fall in a relatively small area. The porous volcanic soil and rock soak up all of this rainfall and slowly direct it underground to distant springs, including the Mzima Springs which is famous for its hippos and crocodiles.

In the 1950s, this water resource was tapped to provide water for the coastal city of Mombasa, and today this pipeline accounts for one-third of the city’s water supply. It’s a reliable, sustainable water source, and it is estimated that the Chyulu Hills aquifer contains an incredible 158,503,231,415 gallons of water.

Protecting this natural asset costs money, which does not get paid by the downstream users in Mombasa and elsewhere. Until recently, these costs have fallen largely on the Kenya Wildlife Service and conservation NGO’s, but the establishment of the Chyulu Hills REDD+ Project is now providing revenue from carbon credit sales to offset some of these costs.

The long-term protection of the Chyulu Hills, as a natural habitat and a vital water tower, requires action to prevent habitat destruction, deforestation, and fires, and restore degraded areas of the catchment.

None of this is cheap, but the cost of losing this priceless ecosystem is one that we (and millions of Kenyans) can’t afford. We remain committed, along with all other partner beneficiaries of the Chyulu Hills REDD+ Project, as a guardian of this important place.

The terrain is rough; a string of extinct and dormant volcanoes rising from Amboseli’s dry savannah plains. Razor sharp lava rocks indicate the most recent eruptions, while older craters have been softened by more than a million years of erosion.

The surrounding landscape is semi-arid, but the Chyulu Hills have created their own world. The line of hills forces warm Indian Ocean air upwards; this air condenses to create clouds and ultimately rainfall. So much rain falls that in wet years the cloud forests of the Chyulus receive as much precipitation as parts of the Amazon rainforest.

The result is a huge range of habitats that support diverse and abundant life forms and the dense natural vegetation, including a range of forest types, is also an extremely valuable carbon sink.

Despite its importance, the Chyulu Hills National Park is one of Kenya’s least known National Parks and is continually short of funding. The park is also surrounded by a large human population, many of whom have no incentive to participate in the protection of this astonishing place.

But the world is coming to the rescue. The Chyulu Hills REDD+ project was started as a way to raise money for the protection of the landscape and has been more successful than anyone could have imagined.

The project is ambitious, with nine project partners including two government agencies, four community landowner groups, and three conservation non-profits. But ambition is what is needed, and since the start of the project, 2,000,000 tons of carbon credits have been sold. This amount offsets the equivalent of 5,026,395,742 miles driven by an average passenger vehicle, or the consumption of 225,047,823 gallons of gasoline.

The high standards of the project has attracted buyers such as Tiffany and Co. and Gucci, and the technical and marketing support of Conservation International has been critical in securing these sales. The income generated is fast becoming a fundamental contributor to the management of the National Park and the creation of benefits for surrounding communities.

In 2021, Big life received $154K USD that supported funding for teachers, student scholarships, community rangers, and development of community land-use plans to protect important habitats. In addition, the funds helped secure a variety of emergency fire management tools, since fires in the Chyulus are devastating to the habitat and overall goals of the REDD+ Project.

Projects like this play a powerful role in the fight against global climate change, as well as creating nature-based benefits for indigenous communities who are the stewards of so many of the planet’s important natural spaces. Big Life is very proud to be part of it.

The elephant named Tolstoy is a living natural wonder, carrying some of the largest tusks on the planet. So when Big Life’s rangers don’t see him for a while, they go looking.

They searched beyond their normal patrol areas and eventually found him resting under a tree. All appeared fine, until he took a step… something was badly wrong. Tolstoy could barely walk. Upon getting closer, the rangers could see the problem: a puncture wound in the joint on his front right leg.

 A wound like this was no accident. Tolstoy frequently plays a high-stakes game called crop-raiding. When he wins, he comes away with a bellyful of highly nutritious crops. But when he loses, he gets speared.

Tolstoy doesn’t know it, but his crop raids can cost a farmer their entire season’s income in one night, and these farmers (justifiably) care little that Tolstoy is one of Africa’s dwindling number of ‘super tuskers’. It’s not the first time this has happened: in 2018 he was treated for three spear wounds, also a result of crop-raiding.

The Kenya Wildlife Service vet unit, funded by our partners at Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, was quick to respond, but the decision to treat him was not made immediately. Darting an animal of this size, particularly with a wound in a sensitive joint, is extremely risky because the elephant may not be able to stand after treatment. The decision was made to wait 24 hours and see if his condition improved.

Big Life’s rangers stayed by his side, spending the entire night out with him, but the wound showed no signs of improvement. The decision was made to dart him, and it was done quickly and professionally.  His wound was thoroughly cleaned and treated, and Tolstoy was given antibiotics and painkillers before a jab to wake him up.

With great effort, he finally stood and stared back at the treatment team, before retreating into the shade. For now, his prognosis looks good, but he’s not out of the woods just yet as he continues to heal. Big Life rangers will continue to monitor him while he recovers. And they will continue to spend their nights out in the farms, keeping elephants safe and helping farmers to protect their crops, in order to prevent this from happening again.

Photos: Jeremy Goss

Thanks to our partner, Saving The Wild, Big Life has been able to implement a beekeeping and honey production enterprise in the ALOCA Kimana Conservancies. The project aim is to provide another nature-based benefit to the landowners in the form of a scholarship fund for their daughters from the profits from the honey sales, and it offers an alternative livelihood model that is low-impact and nature-based.

Currently there are 200 hives, over half of which are occupied with bees. And after a tough and prolonged dry season at the end of 2021, we are finally approaching our first harvest from a selection of the strongest hives in the coming weeks.

Launching any new program is always challenging, but it’s especially challenging when your project involves a particularly tasty treat in an ecosystem full of smart and curious animals.

Late last year, a very determined honey badger was able to burrow under fencing through very rocky and hard ground and gained entry to one of Big Life’s new apiaries, where it had a feast. In total, that honey badger knocked 14 hives from their stands and consumed all the honey they contained.

Once the breach was discovered, we had to mobilize very quickly to come up with a solution and protect the remaining hives, because we knew that honey badger would keep coming back.  Until supplies could be purchased, heavy rocks were placed in the hole it had dug, and torches were set up overnight to deter it’s return. Ranger teams also assisted with patrols throughout the night to check on the apiary.

The bee team then worked to build a 2-foot-deep cement and wire mesh re-enforced foundation around all the apiaries. As they worked on the first one, another honey badger attack happened at a second, and four additional hives were lost. Thankfully, we were able to respond faster this time and recapture the colonies, which had moved to nearby trees.

Thanks to the hard work of the beekeepers, workshop and ranger teams, all apiaries have now been secured with a cement foundation. The honey badger returned and tried to dig through but was unsuccessful, so for now we have outmaneuvered it. One can’t help but admire the tenacity of badgers!