This project is successfully saving lions and other predators from retaliatory killings AND really is sustainable.
Please read on.... It truly is a project that is helping save fragile lion populations - PLEASE SUPPORT IF YOU CAN.
It took very many years of negotiations with the pastoralist community to arrive at a workable solution to prevent retaliatory lion killings – a major source of mortality for the remaining lions in Amboseli National Park directly bordering on community lands.
The LionAid project has several components:
1. Villages are supplied with solar panels not only to provide flashing lights at night, but also to place lights within each household. Cost is about £5,000 per village (manyatta). But the manyatta residents are required to donate two livestock per household (cattle, goats, donkeys, sheep) to an “insurance herd”. These livestock remain within the community, and are used to replace, one for one, livestock taken by lions and other predators (leopards, hyenas). By Maasai tradition, any livestock born into the insurance herd is added to the herd.
2. Decisions to replace predated livestock in villages not yet provided with deterrent lights is handled by a committee of elders. Since the inception of the project in 2022, there have been NO retaliatory killings. The project is guided by a Maasai elder not from the community and a Government Chief elected by the wider community. Both are highly respected by community residents. The committee of elders includes women – a first for a Maasai project.
3. The insurance herd now numbers over 500 animals and grows every year via reproduction.
4. The project includes a requirement for community members to become self sufficient over time. The insurance herd will not only provide replacement livestock in cases of legitimate predation incidents as determined by the elders, but can also provide livestock to be sold to cover veterinary care, school fees, maintenance of the solar systems and perhaps most importantly, a cessation of the constant need for donor funds to provide lighting and solar panels. This is in contrast to almost all conservation projects in Kenya that are entirely reliant on outside funding. As such funding is becoming increasingly scarce, many projects have become abandoned. The elders in Merrueshi have now agreed to sell some livestock to meet their increasingly growing self reliance
5. The project has both community support and a direct benefit for changing attitudes to wildlife on their land. For example, households equipped with solar lights are reporting that children are doing much better in school as they can do homework, are less reliant on polluting kerosene lamps, and even that they are seeing a decrease in cataracts among household members. The next phase of the project will emphasise increasing self reliance of the community while acknowledging the community has a total of 58 villages (of which six are now provided with lights). There is a long way to go, and in initial stages, some further outside funding will be required.
6. The project has seen much interest from other Maasai communities in Kenya. With growing self reliance, the project can be adapted to move away from Merrueshi to include such other pastoralists as LionAid incorporates means and lessons learned from this pilot scheme. Each area will have unique challenges, but placing decisions in the direct control of communities themselves is a strong positive step from other programmes reliant on distant influences.