Training – Ewaso Lions

Our Lion Kids Camps – How Do We Know They Work?

How do we know we are having a positive impact on the children that attend our Lion Kids Camps? To evaluate the impact of each of our camps, all attendees complete a pre-camp and a post-camp quiz. The quizzes contain a series of multi-choice questions aimed at assessing changes in attitudes and knowledge. We also conduct a short pre-camp and post-camp questionnaire containing open ended questions. Our education team are highly skilled at conducting the quizzes and questionnaires.

Our Lion Kids Camp team who conduct all evaluations (c) Lucy Maina

To date we have held 35 Lion Kids Camps with almost 1000 children from across 4 counties in northern Kenya. Some of the highlights of our latest Camp held in October 2023 include:

– 96% of the children who attended went on their first ever safari
– The average number of threats that lions face that the children stated post-camp compared to pre-camp increased from 2.3 to 6.6
– 77% of the children said that it was possible for their community to live alongside carnivores peacefully, compared to 58% before the camp
– Before the camp, 76% of children considered themselves as responsible for protecting their livestock from predation. Following the camp, this increased to 100%
– 96% of the children would like to learn more about wildlife and conservation following the camp.

For the full impact report of our last Lion Kids Camp in October 2023, click here. We thank Cheyenne Mountain Zoo and Kampur Safaris for their support in this year’s Camps.

For more information on our Lion Kids Camps, click here.

To help us hold a Lion Kids Camp and increase the impact we are having, click here to make a donation. Each Lion Kids Camp costs us $2500. Thank you so much!

Community-Led Conservation: Exploring the PARTNERS Principles for Conservation

Community-Led Conservation: Exploring the PARTNERS Principles for Conservation

Community-led conservation is more than just working with communities; it’s about empowering them to drive conservation decisions and actions. That was the key takeaway from a recent workshop held by Ewaso Lions in collaboration with the PARTNERS Conservation Alliance. The workshop, which took place on February 5th and 6th in Samburu, Northern Kenya provided an opportunity for conservation practitioners to share ideas and experiences on community-led conservation.

Led by Dr. Shivani Bhalla, Director of Ewaso Lions, Dr. Justine Shanti Alexander, a Senior Conservation Scientist at the Snow Leopard Trust, and Jeneria Lekilelei, the Director of Community Conservation at Ewaso Lions, the workshop drew upon their collective experiences from Ewaso Lions’ 15 years in conservation, experience in snow leopard conservation across High Asia and the PARTNERS Conservation Alliance workshop held in Kyrgyzstan in 2022.

Participants explored what community-led conservation entailed across different settings. One group visualized the community as the rain and the roots of any conservation initiative. Their culture, opinions, and thoughts are the rain, the roots are the community making decisions, management, and actions in conservation, and the leaves represent the concerted efforts from all stakeholders and partners in conservation, including the government, conservationists, the private sector, and the media, among others.

Jeneria Lekilelei, Director of Community Conservation at Ewaso Lions, shared the essence of community-led conservation;
“Community-led conservation is a process where the community is in charge, they make the decisions, and have ownership of the conservation activities. When the community faces a challenge, they come up with their way of figuring things out, and always respecting their culture.”

During the workshop, the PARTNERS Principles – Presence, Aptness, Respect, Transparency, Negotiation, Empathy, Responsiveness, and Strategic Support – were utilized as the framework to explore how to effectively and ethically conduct conservation. Developed by Charudutt Mishra and his partners from the Snow Leopard Trust in the High Asia region, these principles were integral to the discussions held during the workshop.

The workshop was interactive, and the team worked with Ewaso Lion staff who were also community members to define the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of community-led conservation in their own words. Team members highlighted the need for conservation initiatives to be rooted in local culture and build on indigenous knowledge. They also emphasized the need to engage the next generation as they were the guardians of their culture and ways of life.

Overall, the workshop provided participants with a platform to enhance their skills, reflect on challenges and opportunities encountered in conservation, and strengthen their ability to engage with communities in conservation.

“The manner in which the PARTNERS training was held was superb and a true way of working together with the community (in this case – the participants). The way the two facilitators, Justine and Shivani, did the training was in such a way that the participants were fully engaged and the ideas and thoughts came from them – as opposed to the trainers giving out long endless presentations. The training was a true way in which all community led-conservation work should be done (with the communities (and the trainees in any training) at the center).” Toby, Operations and Impact Director, Ewaso Lions

Mama Simba on safari in the Mara – Ewaso Lions

Warrior & Mama Simba Adventures

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]In September, our team of Warriors visited the Maasai Mara in southern Kenya – for some – this was their first time leaving Samburu. The objective of the trip was to learn about conservation in a new landscape. In the Mara there is less human-predator conflict than in other areas because of the larger amount of grazing land available to support large wild herbivores. The presence of these populations of herbivores means lions have enough natural prey and do not turn to killing livestock out of desperation.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”7629″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Our team drove down across Kenya and spent 1.5 days in the Mara. The team saw over 30 lions in that short period and new animal species they hadn’t seen before such as topi, rhino, hippo and thousands of wildebeest who were moving through the Mara. Lebasha, one of the warriors said, “I wish I could bring my lioness Nadala here for a week so she could get healthy and fat, and then take her back to Samburu“. The lions seen were very healthy and hunting daily, sometimes twice a day because of the availability of food everywhere. It was a real eye -opener for the warriors to see plentiful prey for lions everywhere!

Our Mama Simba ladies also had an adventure of their own in September. They travelled to Samburu Reserve on their first ever “Bush Bus” safari together with other women from the village, followed by an exciting team building adventure to climb Lolokwe, the Samburu sacred mountain north of Samburu. This was the first attempt to climb the mountain for our entire group of ladies and they completed the climb in less than 5 hours, and sung their way to the top.

We are very grateful to the Whitley Fund for Nature for the funding for our Warriors to visit the Maasai Mara and World Women Work for all the support provided for the Mama Simba programme. Thank you for enabling the Samburu communities to experience new landscapes and wildlife.

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Mama Simba Women Tackle Waste Issues Through Visit to Western Kenya

In rural northern Kenya, Samburu women regularly buy staples such as sugar, tea and maize from local shops. These items always come packaged in plastic or thin nylon bags. The bags, along with other waste items, are often burned or discarded in the bush or around the manyattas, where livestock and wildlife may ingest them.

There are no waste disposal or recycling services here. In the past, the ladies said they would wait for the rains and then rush down to the river to let the surging water carry away their waste.

To face this environmental threat, Ewaso Lions has organised several clean up campaigns in the local villages to raise awareness about importance of a keeping the environment clean and healthy. At the same time, we know there is a local demand from the community for more recycling opportunities, based on recent surveys.

We are now exploring long-term solutions to this waste problem and want to enhance the business skills and training for our Mama Simba women. Thus, we have reached out to organisations with expertise in waste management and setting up community-based recycling enterprises. One such group, Zingira Community Crafts, based in Kisumu, Western Kenya and founded by Evance Odhiambo, tackles such development issues facing the environment and development while also providing employment to talented artisans. The project trains artisans to create products made from recycled or sustainable materials.

Earlier this month, our Mama Simba Coordinators, Munteli and Mparasaroi, together with our Resident Wildlife Artist, Samson, attended a two-day product development workshop organized by the Zingira team in Dunga, Kisumu. The workshop was primarily designed to enhance the craft-making skills of Dunga community members (mainly women and youth), as well as providing ecotourism advisory – and Evance kindly extended the invitation to the Ewaso Lions team.

The ladies learned two techniques for making intricate baskets and bags. One technique involved using water hyacinth (an invasive species from South America introduced into Lake Victoria) to create beautiful woven baskets, which the ladies proudly showed off upon their return to Samburu.

The Mama Simba ladies are now excited to experiment with applying this technique to other materials, such as plastic bags, which are more readily available in Samburu. They have already started collecting bags around their villages – they don’t want to forget what they have learnt.

Meanwhile, Samson learned how to create interesting artworks and candlesticks using tins and other scrap metals. As our Resident Wildlife Artist, we hope Samson can apply these new skills in his own work, as well as supporting any creative enterprises that form part of the Mama Simba programme.

The team was particularly impressed by the business acumen of the Zingira team and were excited to learn how they might apply this to their own beadwork enterprise and, hopefully, in future their own recycling enterprise. Munteli certainly has big plans to establish a centre where she can train other members of her community one day.

We are immensely grateful to Evance and his team at Zingira Nyanza Community Crafts for inviting Samson and the ladies to attend the workshop. We are also excited for the next phase of our partnership with Zingira. Next month, their team will be visiting Samburu to conduct a feasibility study for a Mama Simba recycling enterprise.

Women in Conservation: Expanding the Mama Simba Program

Since launching our Mama Simba program in 2013, we have engaged 300 Samburu women in conservation. The core Mama Simba group consists of 10 women, who work with other women within their communities, thereby spreading conservation messaging through peer-to-peer sharing. The women participate in conservation training and litter removal campaigns, and report on lion sightings and conflict issues. In exchange, we set up weekly schooling to provide educational opportunities they never had before, and also offer training in new beaded art craft, so they can diversify their income.

The Mama Simba women with Shivani in the classroom where they are learning to read and write. Photo © Ewaso Lions

Now, in response to strong positive feedback by participating women, we are expanding the Mama Simba program into new areas and offering new opportunities for the women to get involved in conservation.

Working in Four New Areas

In 2016, we will introduce the Mama Simba program into four new locations in Westgate Conservancy in northern Kenya. Women in these locations have already expressed an interest in joining the program. We are conducting questionnaire surveys with women in each location to provide a baseline against which we will be able to evaluate the program’s effectiveness over time. We also hope to set up an additional school for women from these four new locations.

More Targeted Education and Training

The recent feedback survey highlighted that the education initiative was highly valued by the women. However, the results also indicated that improvements should be made to ensure the women continue to make progress and that teaching effectively addresses the women’s differing ability levels.

The feedback survey also found that all the women would be interested in receiving more conservation training. Moving forward, Ewaso Lions will lead sessions covering themes such as: managing conflict situations, livestock husbandry practices, identification of carnivores from tracks and signs, importance of conservation, and more. We hope that this training, in conjunction with the topics covered under the education initiative, will enable the women to collect information following incidents of livestock depredation and ensure they are able to effectively deal with any resulting conflict, and to advise others of methods to reduce depredation in future.

Rebecca proudly displays her Mama Simba shuka (wrap) in her village. © Ewaso Lions

Cleaning Up Waste in Villages

Rather than having one-time litter cleanups in villages, we wish to make the Mama Simba waste removal campaign more sustainable and effective. We will conduct a waste audit to ascertain the quantity and type of materials that are being wasted locally and determine whether the women are able to turn this waste into quality products that can be sold to generate supplementary income.

Beadwork for Income

The beadwork component of the Mama Simba program is valued highly by the women. We now intend for the current Mamas to train two or three women in each new locations how to make the beaded lions. Expansion of the beadwork component of the program will help us to meet increasing demand for the beaded lions, as well as provide another opportunity for the women to spread awareness about lions and their conservation within the Conservancy.

With the Mama Simba survey demonstrating positive results for the program, we look forward to taking this program to the next level. By carefully designing each aspect of the program, we see a real opportunity to engage more Kenyan women in conservation, and create a secure future for lions and other large carnivores in the region.

Women learn about wildlife conservation and obtain skills that they can use in all aspects of their lives. © Ewaso Lions

New Guides Added to Lion Watch

Ewaso Lions recently trained 7 safari guides from various lodges in Samburu to join our Lion Watch program. This makes a total of 20 Lion Watch guides in Samburu, who collect important lion data while they are on their daily gamedrives.

The 2-day training session covered ecology, conservation, identifying and aging lions, Samburu’s lions, and how to collect data on smart phones.

The most enjoyable part of the training was a “naming ceremony” where the guides voted for their favorite names as we named Nanai’s and Nabulu’s 5 cubs. There were more than 25 names to choose from – all suggested according to features and personalities of the lions and names the guides liked. The votes were tallied up and the names given to the 5 cubs -Lenkwe, Loeku, Lmeisudori (always seen), Naishorua (given) and Namunyak (lucky one). Everyone was really excited by this and following the training, we often hear guides chatting about the cubs and sending text messages talking about the cubs personalities. Also, since the training, the guides have already had close to 20 lion sightings and have recorded it all on their smart phones.

We thank Samburu Intrepids for hosting the training, and all participating lodges and guides for helping us expand the Lion Watch program. Congratulations to the new Lion Watch guides!

The seven new Lion Watch Guides holding their certificates after the training.

Providing Training for Scouts, Warriors, Rangers, and the Public

Shivani discusses predator ecology.

The Ewaso Lions Project provides workshops and training sessions for wildlife scouts, warriors, and community members on a variety of conservation-related topics.

Scout & Ranger Training
We work with community conservancies to assist in training scouts and rangers in wildlife ecology and monitoring, the importance of conservation, minimizing human-predator conflict, and more. In 2011, we held three training sessions and trained a total of 45 scouts and rangers. Read more.

Warrior Training
Through our Warrior Watch programme, we empower young Samburu morans, or warriors, in wildlife conservation management. Warriors receive training on basic wildlife ecology, conservation, communication, security issues, and the value of wildlife. Over time, Warriors are trained in data collection and use GPS, enabling us to map wildlife sightings throughout the Conservancy. Read more.

Moses gives track ID training.

Livestock Husbandry and Conflict Mitigation
Through our Boma Watch programme, we work with livestock keepers, herders, and other community members every day to minimise human-carnivore conflict.

Warriors and scouts participating in a question and answer session.

Our staff provide advice to improve livestock husbandry to better protect livestock – and livelihoods – from carnivores. In turn, this eliminates the need for people to retaliate against lions and other carnivores.

Plus, our staff have received formal training on human-wildlife conflict transformation from the highly praised Human Wildlife Conflict Coalition. With this training on conflict mediation and mitigation, we can more effectively work to achieve our mission of human-carnivore coexistence.

Visiting the Painted Dog Conservation Project in Zimbabwe

This post was written by Jeneria, who recently visited the Painted Dog Conservation (PDC) project in Zimbabwe. PDC is a fellow Partner project within the Wildlife Conservation Network. WCN sponsored this trip so that Ewaso Lions could learn from the experience of PDC, especially about their Children’s Bush Camp, which will help us as we shape and grow our new Lion Kids Camp.

I was very excited when I learned that I was going to visit a conservation project in Zimbabwe, called the Painted Dog Conservation (PDC) project. I found out that the project I was going to visit did a lot of community work including the Bush Camp, which brings children from local schools and educates them on wildlife conservation.

Jeneria flew from Kenya to Zimbabwe to visit the Painted Dog Conservation project and see how they run their successful Children’s Bush Camp.

When I flew from Nairobi to Livingstone in Zambia I was a little nervous – it was only my second time to fly in a plane alone. When I arrived, I met Wilton, who is the manager of the Bush Camp, and went across the border to Zimbabwe and drove from to the camp. Wilton introduced me to the rest of his team and welcomed me to the “Iganyana” Bush Camp. It was a great way to start the sharing of knowledge.

During the Bush Camp, the children learned a lot of things. They were also really excited to learn about the history of the painted dogs and sad to know they are disappearing from our planet. We were all very curious to known the major problems the dogs are facing and we learned that it is habitat loss and also snaring.

Local children attend the Camp to learn about African wild dogs (aka painted dogs) and the importance of conservation.

The kids were taught how to use computers in their impressive computer lab. The children were shown how to collar and track dogs and also practiced drawing them. We visited the rehabilitation centre where they keep orphan dogs and we met two people who work in the centre. We were explained how rehabilitation works and were shown a dog that had been caught by a snare and brought to recover. We also visited Hwange National Park – I was lucky to go twice to see the dogs – once with the kids and also with MK on another day. MK is the best tracker for dogs and showed me how to identify individual dogs. He told me his own story of how he started with the project and was very passionate.

I really like the book that PDC have done for the children – it is a logbook of their time during the Bush Camp. I hope we can do something similar for our own Lion Kids Camp as I think what PDC has done is fantastic.

With my group in Hwange National Park looking for dogs and other wildlife – with Douglas and Peri.

I really found this visit to another wildlife conservation project a huge success and learned a lot about painted dogs. I also saw how quickly the kids learned about dogs and how they saw themselves as future conservationists and environmental leaders. It was great that I was able to share knowledge with my fellow partners. Being with PDC has given me many ideas about our Lion Kids Camp as we educate the Samburu children on conservation issues. One challenge I feel is that we would find it hard to follow-up with the children when they go in to secondary school, like the way PDC follows up with each child. But I am ready for the challenge.

MK took us to track the wild dogs.

With my “Pride” group drawing wild dogs.

Working with Samburu Elders for Lion Conservation

The following was written by Ewaso Lions Field Officer, Jeneria Lekilele

On the 6th and 7th of July, we held the first official training for our new Wazee Watch programme which we are launching in Westgate Community Conservancy, here in northern Kenya. Wazee is the local word elders, which is pronounced “wah-zay”. Wazee hold very influential positions in Samburu culture, so if they promote wildlife conservation within their communities, they will inspire others to do so.

The recent training was about wildlife conservation, human-wildlife conflict and coexistence, land degradation, livestock husbandry techniques and much more. We hoped that by the end of the two days, we would find better solutions to solving conflict and to build capacity within this group of wazee.

Jeneria trains the elders on carnivore track identification.

The wazee reminisced about the past and discussed how in the past lions have always attacked livestock. It is in our culture and part of our history. They noted how there isn’t any change now — they are not losing more livestock compared to the past.

One of the wazee, Lekarkaraule, said, “I regret how many wildlife we have lost in this region. Look at the rhino.” He relayed a story about how all the rhinos are now gone after people from outside would come in and say that they would shoot a giraffe for them to eat if they would show them the whereabouts of a rhino that they could kill. “Let us not lose the lions, the way we have lost our rhinos”, said one of the elders. Leletur, another elder, said, “If you see how many lions or wildlife we used to have in this place, you will see we have lost a lot if you look around now.”

Some of the elders, or wazee, during the training.

I gave them a briefing about the lion population and described the threats that lions face nowadays like habitat loss and retaliatory killing. We had a discussion on how people have occupied all of the lion’s space. The wazee really had lions on their minds and thought about the areas lions used to hide and search for prey. “People live in these places now”, they said. “It is hard for wildlife to live in these places and lions now find it difficult to survive. This is why they are causing problems like attacking our livestock.”

The elders told me that the best way we can approach the community and work with them is to do awareness and to also talk to individuals. “We have seen that the wildlife is ours and have brought benefits to us. They also make our region famous and our culture too,” said one elder.

On the second day, we took the elders into Samburu National Reserve to see wildlife close-up. We met the wardens and had a great wildlife experience after seeing Nanai, my favourite lioness, try to kill a warthog. We returned to Westgate, the elders agreed that yes indeed, there were few lions nowadays but saw their importance after seeing so many tourists trying to see the lions that day.

The Wazee Watch team.

We ended the day by talking about security issues. We also discussed about how settlements and non-residents of Westgate were affecting wildlife especially when they settled in areas which were wildlife areas.

The elders were very happy and they promised to share the knowledge to other people within their villages. “We will be ambassadors of wildlife and conserve wildlife – because they are in danger,” they said.

I look forward to working closely with the Wazee Watch group in the future.

Training the First Lion Watch Guides

Our new and unique Lion Watch programme was launched in April as we embarked on a 2-day training workshop for invited guides and rangers resident in Samburu National Reserve. I received assistance on the training from Dr. Irene Amoke from Oxford Brookes University who was well versed on the technological aspects of the training.

The training started with an exam! Unknown to the guides, I had to have some form of measure of impact and see how much they already knew. They all willingly sat the exam and I was able to gauge their knowledge of the lions and prides in the area. It was good to see how the two male lions – Loirish and Lguret – are very well known.

Jelly and Jacob take the first exam.

Following the exam, I covered how Lion Watch works and also gave a description on Ewaso Lions and the programmes we have initiated with the community in spreading awareness about the importance of lions. This was followed with a session on Lion Ecology. Most of the guides that attended the training were Bronze and Silver Level guides, and so I did not go into so much detail on the ecology aspects. I spent more time going through the conservation status of lions and explaining why lion numbers have declined throughout Kenya.

After lunch, I showed the guides how to age and identify individual lions. They all had a go at drawing lions’ whisker spot patterns and ear notches which caused great amusement amongst the guides. I then went through the individual lions of Samburu and Buffalo Springs. The guides also were given the opportunity to name two lionesses that had not yet been named. They came up with great names – Naserian and Nadala.

Teaching the guides lion identities.

The next day Irene explained how we are using a new smartphone app called Wild Forms. The guides were each given a smartphone and shown how to collect data and take photos.

Irene teaches the guides how to collect data on smartphones.

Following this, they sat their second exam. They were all nervous about this and hoping to pass the 60% mark to attain their Lion Watch status. They needn’t have worried – they passed with flying colours – the scores doubled on average from the first exam. At this time, I went through the rules of what a Lion Watch guide means and they were all happy to sign the code of conduct documents. Now, they were ready to celebrate! The Chief Warden of Samburu, Mr Simon Leirana, arrived and handed out certificates. Richard, the Manager of Intrepids gave out the very cool Lion Watch badges to each guide.

Rosemary from Sasaab Lodge receives her certificate from the Chief Warden. Photo by Tony Allport.

We are excited to announce we have 13 Lion Watch Guides in Samburu. The participating lodges are Samburu Saruni, Sasaab Lodge, Elephant Bedroom Camp, Samburu Game Lodge, Larsens Camp and Samburu Intrepids. Three rangers from Samburu National Reserve and our field officer Jeneria also participated in the training. The guides were all really excited at the end of the workshop and had some great things to say:

“I am very happy indeed. After working in this park for 15 years, I have learned more about the lions than ever before, in just 2 days”. Joshua Esokon, Larsens Camp.

“It is a new dawn for the tourism industry. Fabulous”. Elijah Leiririo, Elephant Bedroom Camp.

The first group of Lion Watch Guides in Kenya! Photo by Tony Allport.

Samburu Intrepids was a fantastic host for the training. I am very grateful to Richard Yoga, the manager of Intrepids for his warm welcome and hospitality during the training.

We are scheduled to have a follow up meeting in June. The guides have already started collecting data and uploading it ti www.lionwatch.org. So there will be lots to discuss at the meeting. We’ll keep you posted on this and new, exciting programme.

Jeneria from Ewaso Lions receives his certificate for completing the Lion Watch training. Photo by Tony Allport.

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