Save Elephants And Giraffes - Africa's Giants

In order to do conservation effectively, the involvement of the local community is vital. This is one of the foundations of Born Free’s conservation work and our Saving Meru’s Giants is no exception.  

Along with events such as the elephant behaviour workshops we reported on previously or building the beehive fences to help farmers protect their crops from elephants, Born Free also helps communities to create alternative incomes which can help make them more resilient to climate change or conflict with wildlife. One of the ways we do this is by helping set-up Village Savings and Loan Associations. 

A Village Savings and Loan Association (VSLA) is a member-managed group of 10-25 people who save money together and use this to support small loans to group members. This is a particularly valuable tool in communities who don’t have easy access to formal financial services. As a model, VSLAs have been set-up in over 70 countries and it is widely seen as a useful tool for assisting people to have better control over their financial decisions.  

The associations usually run on a one-year cycle, with members able to take out up to three loans throughout the cycle. At regular meetings, members have the opportunity to buy shares, and it is these shares that provide the loans. At the end of a cycle, the savings and profits are shared out to group members. Groups also have the option to set up a Social Fund to help members who experience an emergency such as a funeral, loss of livelihood or housing damage. Born Free has set-up VSLAs across our two programmatic sites in Kenya: Meru and Amboseli. 

In the Saving Meru’s Giants landscape, Born Free has helped set-up nine VSLAs, with a total of 163 members, the majority of which are women. From these VSLA, various social enterprises have been created, such as small-scale grocery stores, shop restocking, crop farming and goat rearing. Last year, across the nine groups, they were able to accumulate over £12,000 in savings and give out loans totalling over £5,500.   

These groups are member managed and supported by Born Free staff initially. Once the set-up has gone well, a Village Agent will be appointed, and the group can be entirely community run. Across these groups, women have assumed leadership roles, enhancing their agency in decision-making processes and contributing to gender equity.  

One VLSA member shared her story: “I was not engaged in any substantial work prior to joining the VSLA group, mainly relying on odd jobs for my income which was very little. After saving in the group, I took a loan of Ksh. 15,000 (£95) which I used to establish a grocery shop. I have been able to repay back the loan to the group and my business is still running. I plan to expand my business with the proceeds from share-outs.”  

A similar account was shared by Patrick Kanake, one of our Conservation Ambassadors “One of our VSLA members is a single mother, who resides near Meru National Park, and has a small kiosk that suffered from stock shortages due to the pandemic and market restrictions. Joining a VSLA transformed her life; she secured a loan to replenish her kiosk, subsequently earning enough profit to support her children’s education and invest further in the VSLA.”  

“She expresses gratitude to the Born Free Foundation for their financial management tools, which have also facilitated community efforts in conservation. The VSLA aids in reporting illegal wildlife activities during meetings and has actively participated in reforestation initiatives, enhancing water resources and reducing human-wildlife conflicts in the area.”  

Conserving Meru’s elephants and giraffes is not possible without the local community’s involvement. The community bear the greatest losses by living alongside wildlife:crop raiding, loss of income and fear. Accessing the VSLAs enables people to be more resilient to events such as crop-raiding or climate change and empowers them to improve the financial security of their family. With increased financial security people are not just surviving day-to-day but they have more capacity to care for wildlife and the environment. As the groups gather often to hold meetings, it also offers a perfect opportunity for the Born Free team to discuss conservation issues and get feedback from the community about wildlife and the work we are doing.  

“I always believed that wild animals were my enemies and disliked them for the destruction they caused in our farms, eating our livestock and destroying crops” explains another group member. “Through this VSLA group, I have been taught a lot about wildlife and now I have a better attitude towards them. I now know how to handle them so that they don’t become too aggressive. I would not kill them but deter them.” 

VSLAs are an invaluable tool to help empower communities and in an ever-changing world, Born Free are proud to support communities to strengthen their resilience.  

Links:

• https://www.bornfree.org.uk/field-conservation/saving-merus-giants/

Innovative, simple and cost-effective, Born Free’s practical work to help people and elephants coexist in Meru, Kenya is having a giant impact. 

How do you help people understand elephant behaviour and stay safe living alongside these huge herbivores? An elephant-sized puppet really helps! Coupled with a toolkit full of simple ways to discourage crop-raiding, Born Free’s mission to help local people and wildlife live together without conflict is making a mammoth difference. 

Elephants are incredibly large animals and although usually quite peaceful, these giants can be extremely dangerous to the people living alongside them. Elephants can be become defensive and aggressive when they feel threatened. Mother elephants can become especially aggressive if they sense a threat to their calf, and males when they are in “musth” – a period characterised by a surge in testosterone. When elephants leave protected areas and enter areas where people live and farm crops, the risk to human safety and crop damage is high.

“Elephants often go to the community because they plant crops the elephants love,” explains our Education Officer, Nicholas Bii. “Once community members understand these reasons, and learn to better identify elephant behaviour, this can reduce crop destruction so all of them live in peace.”

Born Free has been devoted to wildlife conservation in and around Meru National Park since 2014 and for nearly three years has been supporting communities living around the park to peacefully coexist with wildlife, especially elephants. “Through a conflict mitigation toolkit and puppet-based elephant behaviour workshops we aim to achieve coexistence between humans and wildlife,” said Born Free’s Head of Education Laura Eastwood.

“We minimise conflicts by increasing knowledge on how to identify and respond to elephant behaviour. We also increase empathy and interest towards elephants. Our training and practical tools help farmers implement low cost and simple methods to deter elephants from damaging crops, and thus help prevent economic crises.”

At the elephant behaviour workshops, community members participate in skits acted out using a huge puppet of an elephant, where they explore different possible situations and how the elephant might behave, with a view to demonstrating ways in which people can diffuse possibly dangerous encounters.

Samim Kaari, who trained as a teacher, is one of our locally-employed Conservation Ambassadors. “Elephants come in the shambas (farms) when the crops are ripe,” she said. The tool kit includes a noisy shaker, fashioned from tin cans. “The Mwakimas, my community, are very happy about that method,” said Samim. “It is not heavy, so you can carry it and produce the sound that disturbs the elephant and deters it from your farm. There was a time when a man from my community was killed by an elephant, so they used to hate the elephants. But, since I was recruited with Born Free, I’ve been showing them how beneficial these animals are to us. And nowadays they are ok with the elephants.” Sadly, however, incidents resulting in human injury and death do still happen in the area, and across the tropics where elephants and people live side by side.

Elephants are highly intelligent and sentient beings. “The way they react to human encounters can be affected by a range of factors – from food and water availability to time of day and light levels,” said Laura. “Whatever the circumstances, how humans react in return and protect their crops plays a key role in determining the end result. By focussing on increased understanding of the benefits of particular and consistent behaviour from local communities, we can reduce the chances of human and elephant injuries, creating a situation in which elephants are less likely to become aggressive.”

“This must be balanced by the need to use multiple deterrents to protect crops,” added Dr Nikki Tagg, Born Free’s Head of Conservation. “Elephants can otherwise become habituated to the methods, which become less effective.”

The issue of human-elephant conflict is an on-going challenge across Africa and Asia. The land that elephants once lived in and moved through is reducing and becoming highly fragmented as more land is used for agriculture and development and human settlements expand. Water and food availability, often linked to climate change, are further driving negative interactions between people and elephants.

“In light of the challenges faced, the elephant behaviour workshops, and conflict mitigation toolkit have been well received by the communities we support in Meru,” said Nikki. “We hope that with continued efforts, we may begin to see a more harmonious coexistence, in which crop destruction, and elephant and human fatalities are significantly reduced.”

Thanks to our partners at No Strings International for their support in developing the elephant behaviour workshops.

Links:

• Video: Supporting people to live safely alongside elephants
• Elephants