Today, I am thrilled to have become a Wild Innovator with the newly launched WILD ELEMENTS Foundation on behalf of Ewaso Lions. WILD ELEMENTS consists of three unique organizations accelerating conservation efforts and scaling global environmental change by protecting humankind, animalkind, and plantkind.
We are excited about this new journey and partnership, as WILD ELEMENTS shares our ethos of coexistence between people and wildlife, as well as our belief in empowering women to lead in conservation. Heeding the United Nations urgent call to action on fully implementing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), WILD ELEMENTS Foundation will invest at least $10 million by the 2030 SDGs deadline and prioritize funding for women-led and community-focused work that has the most impact.
Last November, the WILD ELEMENTS film crew spent several days in Samburu filming in preparation. Leaning into our values, Ewaso Lions took the opportunity to tell the story of the profile of a conservationist. As we consider what coexistence will look like in the future, we wanted the world to recognize that each member of the community, women, men and children alike can be – and are – conservationists.
I took time to speak about my perception of “wild landscapes” while growing up in city, not grasping that these spaces were stewarded by people. Munteli took everyone on a journey to the Mama Simba school in Sasaab village, where her passion for conservation begun, while Jeneria introduced the new warriors and elders, and their work with lions under our Warrior Watch programme. The team had a walk down memory lane as Shivani, Jeneria, Jeremiah and Francis reminisced about the beginnings of Ewaso Lions at the site of the old camp.
We also teamed up with the Grevy’s Zebra Trust where Sheila Funnel has been nominated as their Wild Innovator, to talk about the importance of keeping the landscape connected in the wake of mega infrastructure development.
We are watching with growing excitement as the WILD ELEMENTS Foundation flips traditional philanthropy on its head and disrupts giving models in an effort to decolonise it. Of course, this fits in perfectly with all Ewaso Lions efforts to change the conservation narrative and widen the circle for a more inclusive conservation model to emerge.
