Elephant Aware Maasai Mara

Gini’s Story

I live in a tent in the African wilderness. In the Mara ecosystem in Kenya to be precise. My family also live in tents and our camp forms the base of operations for our conservation work. Our camp does not have running water and our water has to be collected from a communal borehole a few kilometres away twice a week. This lifestyle has taught me a precious lesson of the value of water growing up, and learning exactly how valuable every drop is. Most of our neighbours – the Maasai people – live the same way. We buy food supplies for our entire team from the nearest large town about a two and a half hour drive away and we mostly use solar and a generator for our electricity. We have many night-time visitors in the camp, sometimes it is an elephant plucking grass just outside my tent or a giraffe delicately nibbling from the tree over my tent. Recently, two male lions decided to chase each other all over the camp accompanied by a thunderous cacophony of roars as they competed over a female. This is the only life I know and I love it. I have lived in a tent most of my life and I remember how thrilled I was as a child when went we spent our school holidays together on safari, sleeping in tents with lions roaring outside, hyenas in the distance, and all manner of small creatures going about their natural routines just beyond the thin wall of canvas.

Waking up in a tent and listening to all the glorious sounds of a waking wild world and spending the day playing with Maasai warriors in rivers, knowing full well that there could be likely encounters with lions, buffaloes, and elephants! Spending hours watching different wildlife, or sitting around a fire at night and listening to wondrous tales about this mesmerising place I call home. This was what I considered great fun when I was a child. Like most kids, I dreaded returning to boarding school – away from all that I loved. But looking back now, I am immensely grateful for my education – both within the classroom and in the wilderness. I wouldn’t be the person I am if not for the most amazing upbringing my parents provided for my brother and I. Because of this, I will be forever grateful for the passion they instilled in me from a young age to love wildlife, but also to seek a career in a field where I can make a difference. Now, we work as a family to help protect these wild places that have had such a deep impression on me as an individual.

Today, I am part of an amazing team of conservationists, which includes my parents and my brother, working to secure a future for elephants and other wildlife in the Mara ecosystem. The name of our project is Elephant Aware and it was founded over a decade ago by my parents who, between them, have a vast wealth of knowledge and experience as conservationists in Kenya. We have a team of 25 passionate individuals; 15 rangers and 10 support staff, myself included. We prioritise locally driven conservation and almost all of our team is made up of Maasai people who are from this area. Because of this, we have been able to establish a strong relationship with the community of Maasai landowners that is crucial to the effectiveness of our work. Because the rangers are Maasai themselves, they understand the cultural values of their communities and this is a truly essential foundation for the project.

The reason why we focus on elephants is because they face many challenges to their survival, and the state of their future in the wild is greatly threatened – mostly by humans. Elephants are also considered an ‘ambassador species’ and a ‘keystone species’, both meaning that many other wildlife species depend on elephants to survive because elephants have the ability to significantly affect the ecosystems they inhabit. Within only a few years, elephants can convert woodland forest into open savannahs and, contrariwise, because elephants only digest around 40% of their food intake, they provide vegetation regrowth through the seed dissemination in their dung that eventually becomes new forests. Through our emphasis on protecting elephants, our efforts also help protect other wildlife and the wild habitat they all depend upon for survival. Our team at Elephant Aware are completely field-based throughout the year, and we purposely designed the project this way in order to have minimal overheads so that all the funding we receive goes directly into our efforts on the ground. We work in an area called Siana that is located on the eastern side of the Mara ecosystem. Siana is a large area of thousands of acres comprising wild habitat from large hills, valleys, woodlands to rivers and open grasslands that are filled with a wide variety of wildlife. Human settlements are interspersed throughout Siana as well and all the land is owned by the Maasai people. Parts of Siana are protected as wildlife conservancies that are managed by different local groups but so much of the wildlife population still exists outside of protected areas and therefore, species like elephants frequently come into conflict with people when competing for resources such as water and also space. Apart from the widespread transnational danger of poaching that is driven by the demand for ivory, one of the biggest threats African elephants face today is the loss of their historical range due to human development that is encroaching on their habitats and is causing them to be squeezed into smaller areas and ultimately, closer to humans.

When conflict between people and elephants occurs it inevitably leaves a trail of loss and tragedy for both because people can be killed by elephants during close encounters and elephants are very often killed in retribution. So many traditional migratory routes used by elephants have been cut off by human structures such as roads, fences and buildings, and this has had a devastating effect on their freedom to access important areas. Elephants consume a huge amount of vegetation on a daily basis, more than 180kg in fact! But given the freedom to do so, they are constantly on the move to avoid depleting resources in areas that they depend on at different times of the year. One of Elephant Aware’s biggest goals is to promote a peaceful coexistence between elephants and people for the benefit of all. Our team work in close collaboration with the Siana community to prevent incidents of conflict between people and species like elephants everyday, and by implementing different solutions with the help of our donors and partners, such as protecting natural wildlife corridors. We hope to reduce the level of Human-Elephant-Conflict or HEC in this area. Through our years of dedicated efforts, there has been a tremendous positive change in the general attitude towards wildlife and in the overall security of endangered species.

So why are elephants important? Elephants are the largest land mammals on earth and almost everyone has some idea of what an elephant looks like. They are charismatic in their ability to create a fascination and a strong sense of compassion among many around the world. There have been marches, peaceful protests, vigils, films, books, and so much more dedicated to elephants. If you ask a child anywhere in the world what an elephant is, chances are that they could describe an elephant quite accurately. Additionally, from an economic standpoint, elephants also generate huge revenue to the countries they live in through tourism and employment stability. Millions of jobs, from those working in the culinary industry to safari guides and rangers, to airport employees and travel agencies rely, in great part, on wildlife destinations, especially in countries like Kenya.

But if we put aside their economic value and simply view elephants as the sentient creatures that they are, then perhaps we will take on a more personal perspective towards their plight. Elephants are individuals and this becomes incredibly apparent after years of studying them. Elephants embody all of our good human qualities such as empathy, love, courage and intelligence with almost none of the opposite. I have witnessed mother elephants being so attentive to their calves. Whenever a young elephant so much as trips, there is usually a big commotion and the entire herd rushes over to comfort them. I have seen elephants mourn and grieve in such a deeply moving way that it leaves me with no words. There are instances where elephants have displayed amazing trust towards us despite having had traumatic experiences with humans in their lifetime. I have also seen elephants celebrate births and express obvious joy during social gatherings. I have shared all of the amazing experiences with our team and it has helped us gain invaluable insight into the lives of elephants. It has been discovered through past research of different populations in Kenya and elsewhere that elephants have an evolved language that they use to communicate with one another. They are each very different in appearance. For example, we are able to distinguish different elephants based on their ear notches, their tusks and other facial features. Many of the elephants in this area are named by community members through an online database and this is not only important for recognition purposes but it also enables us to learn more about where these elephants go and which areas they prefer which helps us to better protect them. Speaking from experience I can say that the more you understand them and the world they must navigate through, the more powerful your dedication is to secure a future where elephants can roam freely in precious wild places like the Mara ecosystem.

By Gini Cowell

To find out more about Elephant Aware or to make a donation to help the conservation of elephants in the Maasai Mara, visit their website or follow them on social media.