Big Life’s programs in East Africa cover a wide variety of local issues, all of which ultimately support both the wildlife and community in our area of operation. Our core ethos is that if conservation supports the people, the people will support conservation. To that end, one of our lesser-known but critical areas of work is our commitment to the health of the local Maasai. Immunizations have been on everyone’s mind lately, mostly due to the global pandemic from Covid-19. However, there are many other types of common diseases that we can be immunized for. In many countries around the world, these preventable and sometimes fatal diseases are being controlled and, in some instances, nearly eradicated. However, in less developed areas of the world with low access to health services, these diseases are still a threat. The World Health Organization estimates that 23 million children did not receive basic vaccines in 2021, the highest since 2009.

As part of Big Life’s Community Health Program, we facilitated Ministry of Health nurses to administer 8,281 vaccines last year, and as of the end of March 2022, another 3,620 doses have already been administered. These vaccines are protecting the community from diseases such as polio, measles, tuberculosis, HPV, diphtheria, hepatitis, and tetanus to name but a few, and now the Covid-19 vaccine is also finally being rolled out in rural areas of Kenya. Being able to take a short car ride to your doctor for routine immunizations is something we should never take for granted if we have the access to it. But millions around the world do not.

We are so grateful to our partners, including CHASE Africa, who support our health programs and prevent the spread of these debilitating diseases in the Greater Amboseli ecosystem.

Photo: Jeremy Goss

This story has a happy ending, despite the distressing video, so please don’t look away!

It started with a late-night call from a local community member, who reported two giraffes caught in snares. Big Life’s Rapid Response Unit set out immediately and met up with colleagues from Kenya Wildlife Service along the way.

They were met with a surprise. The giraffes were trapped by wires, yes, but not the snares we find laid by poachers. The two leggy animals were immobilized on the ground, their long limbs tangled up in a low fence, likely having run into it in the dark.

Thankfully neither was injured. This video was taken just before the rangers freed them, and they got up quickly and walked away as soon as the wires were cut.

Just as dangerous as poachers and their weapons, property fencing has quickly become one of the biggest long-term threats to wildlife in East Africa’s semi-arid rangelands. All animals, wild and livestock, need to migrate as seasons change. Fences block these movements and kill animals that get tangled up in them.

As the Amboseli ecosystem goes through the land subdivision process, and communal lands are divided into privately held titles, fences like the one these giraffes got caught in are going to spread rapidly.

Big Life has been working with our community partners to develop land-use plans that preserve connected areas for wildlife and livestock, free of fencing. These agreements will be maintained through conservation land leases that keep important habitats natural and productive, for the good of communities and wildlife.

Photo: Jeremy Goss

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.