Born Free

Category: Born Free, Born Free Ethiopia | Date: Jul 28 2009 | By: bornfree

The rains are well and truly here. Most days, there are torrential downpours with incredible lightning and thunder. However, in between the rainy days the sun reappears. The combination of rain and sun causes every plant to grow rapidly. Ethiopians call this time of year their summer and traditionally this is when the countries food crops grow. Sadly, although we have the normal rains in Addis Ababa, I hear that other parts of the country still have not had any rain which does not bode well for this year’s harvest.

Although several members of the local community are still trying to chop trees on the site, the Major and his security team are doing an excellent job not just of preventing further damage to the trees, and also of building a relationship with the community.

We have promised the community they will see direct and indirect benefits from the Wildlife Centre and employing security guards from the local community was an important first step. Next week, we are contracting local labour to build a ‘secure area’ in the centre of the site. I have purchased a used shipping container as the easiest way to have a lockable store for equipment and materials (including materials like cement that need to be kept dry). We will now create a 200 metre fenced area around the shipping container. This will enable us to store the 3,800 fence posts and wire, sand and cement needed to build the perimeter fence. The secure area will be the interim headquarters with a site tent, water tanks and a guard on duty 24 hrs a day, seven days a week.

For those of you who have read the previous Blogs, you have an idea of how difficult it can be to do the simplest things in Ethiopia, so you will not be surprised to hear there have been a few set backs….

We have just purchased a used 4 x 4 Toyota Land Cruiser pick up that will be invaluable in transporting materials, tools and labour as we construct the perimeter fence. Once the fence is completed, the Toyota will be used for general maintenance and as a feed truck. Although I had had a mechanical check before buying the pick up, on my way back from the first drive to the site, the brakes failed completely just as I was approaching one of the busiest roundabouts in Addis at rush hour. Some rapid use of gears and handbrake and a prayer or two saw me safely through the traffic and straight to the garage.

Since the construction of the secure area is a priority, and with the pick up out of action, I commissioned an Izuzu truck to collect fence materials, cement and tools to be stored in the shipping container in preparation for the ‘secure area’ fence construction. We warned the truck driver that the track up to the centre of the site is waterlogged and very, very muddy, but he said he could easily drive up to the shipping container. The truck got stuck after 20 metres.

Anyone who has lived and worked in Africa knows just how capable humans can be in this situation! The security guard team and local farmers all helped. Within 30 minutes the valuable chain link wire, cement, empty oil drums and tools were all unloaded, iron bars used to support the heavy rolls of chain link fence and a procession had started to transport everything to the shipping container.

Meanwhile, back at the office compound the rains had caused the walls of the septic tank (that also are the foundation walls of the staff rooms) to collapse. A local builder took on the task of rebuilding the walls. A very smelly and unpleasant job. Although I have a permit to keep Menelik in the office compound, I have been very careful to keep him a secret so as not to have a mass of inquisitive people trying to get into the compound, disturbing office work and Menelik. In order to protect the Menelik secret, we needed to stop the builders from knowing we had a cheetah in the compound. We could not keep Menelik locked in his shed for a week, so we fixed tarpaulin around the cheetah enclosure (much to Menelik’s excitement). I told the builders that we have a very fierce dog, so not to disturb the tarpaulin. It took eight days for the builders to dig out the old septic tank walls and then rebuild them. Little did they know a cheetah was just a few meters away!

More news in a week or so, when hopefully we will have completed the secure area fencing and can get started on the main perimeter fence.

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Category: Born Free, Born Free Ethiopia | Date: Jul 13 2009 | By: bornfree

Good news and bad.

I have had several meetings with the local community (one with the Mayor of Holeta in attendance) to explain the Wildlife Rescue, Conservation and Education Centre project and how local communities will benefit from labour contracts, business and job opportunities. The local farmers, despite initially being wary of the project, are now very supportive, so I hope over the coming months we can build a strong working neighbourly relationship with our neighbours.

However, news spreads fast. As I had feared, the minute the story got out that the Ministry of National Defence (MOND) had given up the site, a number of AK47-weilding wood cutters and looters have been ‘entrepreneurial’ with our site. Steel reinforcing bars have been chiselled out of some of the ruined buildings and spirited away by moonlight. Far worse, over 100 trees have been felled and branches lopped off some of the old acacia. Although we had been told that the MOND guards would continue to guard the site until we had recruited our own security team, if any MOND guards were still employed, they must have been elsewhere.

The last two weeks have been exhausting with a desperate drive to recruit a security team while every night more trees vanished. To see a new stump where once stood a beautiful old tree has to be one of the most disheartening sights, especially as I have battled for two years to get the land and one of the main reasons for selecting the site was the wonderful mature trees providing natural shade for the future enclosures.

The Holeta administration have been fantastic in recommending suitable applicants for the security team and we now have an enthusiastic and able security team under the management of the charming and efficient ex-army Major Feyisa. The Major is trying to find out who felled the trees as it was obviously a commercial initiative with the timber taken for sale in Addis Ababa. The thieves took quite a risk since Ethiopian law is very strict in order to protect the last areas of woodland and forest in the country. If caught stealing timber thieves can expect a 15 year prison sentence. I was pleased to hear that the local community are not responsible.

Major Feyisa will manage a team of 15 that will split into shifts to patrol the site 24 hours, every day of the week. We have drafted the byelaws for the site and already the security team have successfully prevented some timber thieves.

Bereket (on the left of picture) discussing draft site bye-laws with the Major (pictured holding the blue folder) and the first security team recruits © BFF /JY

The job requires firm, but diplomatic negotiating skills since our security team carry sticks and the timber thieves have AK-47 semi-automatic rifles, chain saws and axes. (One of the major threats to wildlife in Ethiopia is the profusion of firearms acquired during past times of civil strife. Many pastoralists and farmers carry AK-47 rifles and the ease of killing wildlife for meat or for sport has decimated wildlife populations in almost all of the protected areas of land in Ethiopia.) Born Free Foundation Ethiopia will try to secure the land without the use of guns, but we may have to arm the guards who work the night shift.

It is very hard to guard the site when there is no perimeter fence, and in a truly Catch-22 situation, I have been unable to deliver the poles and wire to build the perimeter fence until we had security in place. As soon as we have a full security team and shifts covering all 24 hours a day, we can start the construction of the perimeter fence.

The photo shows some of the security team at an early briefing meeting. I am now equipping everyone with uniforms, and the Major will be training the team, so I hope you will notice a big change when I photograph the team in a week or so!

Although, support for the animals in our care is vital and popular, do please consider supporting operational items such as our Security team. Sponsoring a Major and his security team may not be as heart-warming as sponsoring a cheetah cub, but without security we will have no trees on our site.

The annual budget for our Security Team is UK£ 15,000. Please help if you can.

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Category: Born Free, Born Free Kenya | Date: Jul 03 2009 | By: bornfree

A growing number of Born Free’s projects place the community at the very heart of the project.  Many of these projects stem from Born Free’s Global Friends programme which has identified schools and communities located near Born Free’s wildlife projects, and provided yearly support for infrastructure and resources.  Global Friends works closely with the local schools to encourage further community support of our wildlife projects, address local issues (e.g. access to clean water, tackling human-wildlife conflicts) and create a positive learning environment for children by providing uniforms, stationery and infrastructures. The programme also provides training opportunities to members of the school staff and increase local employment through use of local materials. Currently there are six Global friends schools in Kenya.

Our Visit
Last month, Born Free Kenya team together with a group of its supporters from the UK visited the Global Friends Schools in the Amboseli catchment area. The supporters were on their routine tour of Kenya and they brought various educational toys and learning material, which were distributed to the school children.  In total they visited four schools: Ol moti, Lenkisem, Amboseli and Enkongu Narok where they were ushered with breathtaking traditional maasai dances and poems.  

As we drove through the dry bushes and on dusty roads to each of the schools, there was something unusually notable in all the areas. Most of the manyattas were deserted, there were few people on the way and countless carcasses of livestock scattered all over. This was quite visible in the Ol moti area. Unlike our previous visits, there were no community members in the school, around the boreholes and in manyattas. The number of children in school had dropped from 280 to about 200. 

All these changes have been attributed to the prolonged drought that has engulfed the entire Kajiado south. For the second year running the district has registered a ‘zero’ harvest making people rely on minimal relief food. Farms have turned into open dry fields full of dust. Livestock keeping is no longer a viable option as the community have lost most of their livestock. We were told that a bull that used to cost Ksh 20,000 now fetches as little as Ksh 1000.
 
Most of the community members have moved in search of green pastures and water. Some have moved together with their children as far as Tsavo and Kitengela areas-about 200 kilometres away. This has resulted to reduced enrolment especially at boarding schools.
Ol moti school, which was primarily revived to help less fortunate children whose parents are traditionally nomadic, continues to survive by defying the harsh condition in the area. Even with only 300kg of food left for the entire term, the head teacher Mr. Koringo was still opportunistic and hopeful that situation will go back to normal. He also believes that changing his school registration to a low cost boarding school will be finalized in time to start benefiting from the Home-grown school-feeding programme.

The District Education Board (D.E.B) has already appealed to the government to supplement food to primary schools in the district. The D.E.B chairman who is the District Commissioner (DC) of Loitokitok district said that only boarding secondary schools were on the government-feeding programme.

The DC is concerned with the current harsh situation and has vowed to help hasten the appeal to ensure all primary schools also benefit from the current secondary schools feeding programme.

And as an emergency measure the DC donated about 450kg of maize to Ol moti school to keep them going. This was in addition to about 900kg of food pledged by the BFF supporters and a significant amount of food provided by Born Free Foundation itself. 

Born Free has also been providing for the wildlife affected by this drought, including the hippos in Mzima Springs which have been suffering terribly.

As we left the Amboseli region, we were left contemplating on how soon the rains will come back to rescue the situation.

If you would like to donate to Born Free Kenya and the work they do, please dontate in the BF Kenya section to the right of this blog.

Thank you for reading,

Manoa, Born Free Kenya

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Category: Born Free, Born Free Ethiopia | Date: Jul 03 2009 | By: bornfree

A huge thank you to both Brenton H and Anna C who made donations recently!!As I always say, your support and donations are so appreciated - our projects could simply not work without either.So, just for you Brenton H and Anna C, please find a lovely image below of Menelik the cheetah in his temporary enclosure in Ethiopia.The time is growing ever closer that Menelik will be re-homed in a large enclosure in the Wildlife Rescue, Conservation and Education Centre 30km from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.  We will be bringing you an update on the Centre progress very soon!!Many thanks again on behalf of Born Free Foundation (and Menelik the cheetah)!

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