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OUT OF OAK BROOK
and into
AFRICA Reute Butler carries on a family tradition that extends to Kenya By Kerrie Kennedy
With her major Friends of Conservation (FOC) fundraiser, The Conservation Ball, on the horizon, Reute Butler, whose family founded Oak Brook, spoke about her family legacy of philanthropy, and her commitment to FOC, which works directly with Kenya’s Maasai community and other stakeholders in the renowned Mara-Serengeti ecosystem, promoting sustainable ways of living in harmony with wildlife and ecosystems. From helping to create direct sources of income from tourism, beadwork and beekeeping, to preserving existing forests with alternative sources of energy and “reforesting,” to conservation education efforts for adults and children, FOC— and Reute’s mother Jorie Butler Kent—was a pioneer in the development of Community Conservation work in the 1980s and continues that work today. Hinsdale Magazine recently caught up with Reute Butler, a successful art photographer as well as conservationist, to find out more.
rewarding.
How did Friends of Conservation come to be? My mother, Jorie, founded FOC in 1982, carrying on the philanthropic tradition of our family and our commitment to conservation. She had a house in Kenya for 40 years, and felt strongly that she should give back to that home and to the birthplace of Abercrombie & Kent, which was originally begun by her business partner Geoffrey Kent’s parents in Kenya in 1962. She and Geoffrey developed Abercrombie & Kent into the luxury travel company that it is today, and they are co-owners of the company. My mother and I run Friends of Conservation together; Geoffrey is very supportive, and it gives us great pleasure to work together on something so
Why is education so crucial? It is important for the Maasai to learn how to preserve their beautiful wild-land, because the income it brings them from tourism sustains their culture. If they sell or destroy the land, their major source of income will disappear, as will their culture. This would also negatively impact the economy of Kenya— tourism is the largest income-producing sector in Kenya, and the Mara is the most visited destination in East Africa. Our challenge is to teach the Maasai why it’s valuable to preserve their beautiful habitat, and to look at the wildlife as a resource, rather than [as] competition for resources. It’s hard for them to see the bigger picture when their livestock [have] just been
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Tell me about the work Friends of Conservation does. Friends of Conservation is a small, grassroots organization. Our work focuses on protecting the Maasai Mara Region, Kenya’s portion of the famous Mara-Serengeti ecosystem, which spans the Kenya-Tanzania border, and is home to many hundreds of species. Each year, during the wildebeest migration of more than two million animals, herds in the hundreds of thousands migrate from the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania in search of the green pastures of the Maasai Mara National Reserve in Kenya, and then back south to the Serengeti. It is the largest remaining mammal migration in the world, and this area is really crucial to the survival of the entire ecosystem. It is also home to the Maasai people, who have lived here for longer than anyone can remember.
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