In 2003 ODWT introduced and pilot-tested a one-of-a-kind conservation model on Mbirikani Group Ranch that is comprised of four major components:

·                     Predator Compensation Fund (PCF)

·                     Community Game Scouts

·                     Education

·                     Field research and additive conservation programs (Lion Guardians)

Predator Compensation Fund

In response to an imminent – and virtually certain – threat of local lion extinction, ODWT, in close collaboration with the local community, conceived a first-of-its-kind predator compensation program in order to better balance the costs and benefits of living with wildlife and thereby replace conflict and retaliation with tolerance.

The success achieved by PCF in only four years (2003-2007) is beyond anything otherwise known to the trustees of ODWT in the field of wildlife conservation in Africa.  Since inception, lion killing has virtually stopped on Mbirikani Group Ranch (MGR) within a Maasai community of 10,000 people.  Only four (4) lions have been killed by livestock owners on MGR in more than four years while, during that same period, more than sixty-five (65) lions have been killed on the neighboring group ranches that do not have the PCF program.  The same MGR community that now protects lions killed twenty-two (22) individuals in just eighteen months prior to the introduction of PCF.  The program requires the community to stop killing predators in return for receiving compensation for their depredated livestock.  Urgent expansion of PCF is required to stop lion killing within the entire Amboseli-Tsavo ecosystem before it is too late.  In addition to lions, first and foremost, PCF also covers livestock losses from leopards, cheetahs, the smaller cats, jackals, wild dogs, and hyenas.

Community Game Scouts

ODWT employs 35 local men as fulltime community game scouts.  Each scout is in uniform and trained, linked to headquarters via radio communication, equipped for camping and patrols, and receives vehicle support.  These men are deployed in various operating units to (a) combat poaching activities, (b) protect a rare black rhino population (between 12 and 15 individuals) still living in the wild, (c) resolve human-wildlife conflict, (d) keep river systems flowing, (e) provide general security, including anti-stock theft and protection of the indigenous forests, and (f) facilitate operation of the Predator Compensation Fund (PCF).

The threat to local wildlife of the game-meat trade (poaching) cannot be overstated.  In the past eight years, ODWT scouts have retrieved more than 5,000 wire snares and arrested more than 350 poachers, yet further manpower is required to address this ongoing and worsening crisis. 

Human-wildlife conflict is the greatest single threat to sustainability of the Amboseli-Tsavo ecosystem.  Predators killing livestock; elephants damaging crops and threatening human life; and wildlife, livestock, and agriculture competing for limited water sources are principal causes for conflict requiring ongoing and immediate attention.

Education

ODWT’s Wildlife Scholarship Program has to date sponsored in excess of one-hundred students in primary, secondary, and tertiary education through contributions from individuals.  A contribution of $US 700 sponsors a student for a full year.  Virtually all of these students return to their home areas to provide leadership and much needed skills and services.

ODWT has facilitated the establishment of two primary schools and one boarding school on Mbirikani Group Ranch, providing education to in excess of three-hundred students per year.  In addition ODWT has constructed classrooms and renovated facilities for other schools on the ranch.

ODWT sponsors seven government-certified teachers’ salaries annually and provides teaching aids, schoolbooks, sports equipment, and other educational materials for the benefit of local Maasai students.

An environmental education initiative, Environmental Scouts Program (modeled after the Boy Scouts of America), supplements inadequate government-based teaching curricula, and is aimed at local primary students in recognition that ultimately and without question the future sustainability of the Amboseli-Tsavo ecosystem will be determined by today’s children.  The challenge, of course, in the meantime is to stabilize and sustain the ecosystem until education can bear fruit.

Field Research and Lion Guardians

Working in collaboration with a team of field research scientists and graduate students under the banner of Living With Lions, led by Dr. Laurence Frank of the University of California at Berkeley, the conservation model incorporates a lion collaring and population study dimension with socio-economic research and synergistic conservation projects as developed.

Within the ODWT conservation model, Living With Lions in early 2007 began to manage and extend a collaborative program called Lion Guardians (LG).  The project employs young warriors on MGR who would otherwise have little chance of receiving wages and trains them to monitor lion movements across the group ranch in conjunction with scientists, using sophisticated tracking equipment, and to provide community services to minimize human-predator conflict, such as assisting in finding lost livestock before they are killed by predators, or helping to build better protective thorn fences around livestock enclosures.  The Lion Guardians program also employs specially-produced films in the local Maa language to improve animal husbandry and further reduce conflict.