On 10th May the International Migratory Birds World day was celebrated at the wilderness education centre with 30 children who engage in art and birds identification Origami and songs.| News From Kenya - 2008 |
On 10th May the International Migratory Birds World day was celebrated at the wilderness education centre with 30 children who engage in art and birds identification Origami and songs.
The tragic unsustainable illegal harvesting of sandal wood proceeds with practically no intervention and follow up from authorities despite the wood having been declared a protected species for five years in 2007 by President Kibaki.
We are practically the only remaining place with any sandals and poachers forays are daily drama.
With the incentive of skyrocketing prices local Pokot poachers-and corrupt brokers who seem to enjoy protection, find the temptation impossible to resist. We are lobbying for a regulation of sandal wood harvesting and have initiated experiments for propagation of the same.
On 12th April 2008 Emanuele Pirri - Gallmann 25th anniversary was celebrated with a Sport for Peace Day for the local communities of Laikipia.
Young people from the Nairobi slums and youth belonging to Pokot, Samburu, Njemps, Tugen, Nandi, Turkana and Kikuyu Tribes ���some of these still involved in conflict- also participated.
Two runners from Eldoret-recent theatre of post-electoral violence- joined the over 140 participants for what was a very successful and healing celebration of peace, that saw local schools and communities join as well.
Kuki announced the Laikipia Highlands Games as a major and ongoing national and international sport event to take place annually in October, beginning from October 2008on Laikipia Nature Conservancy.
Click here to view more picturesKuki and Sveva made separate presentation at the second world gathering of the Global Peace initiative of Women in Jaipur, India 6th/10th April 2008.
A baby Rhino was born to Wakesa, sired by Toyo; sex still unknown as she is in deep bush.
Biodiversity:
Our biodiversity keep bringing us new exciting discoveries.
A specimen identified by the National History Museum as lineolate blind snake and a new area record, was collected by Mike Roberts at Llera, on Laikipia Nature Conservancy on April 1st.
The snake was first collected by Emanuele Pirri- Gallmann in 1982 and has never been recorded anywhere else in the region of Laikipia.
Several new specimen of rodents and bats formerly unrecorded have also been collected recently in Laikipia nature Conservancy and are awaiting identification, as are many specimen of moths and beetles.
Melanistic leopard are spotted more and more often in various parts of the conservancy.
The National Museums of Kenya team visited as guest of the GMF for a week in March and discovered new and priorly unrecorded birds species in our Enghlesha forest, some of which are part of the IUCN red list of endangered and threatened species.
85 species of rare birds (less than 50 sighting in Kenya) live in the conservancy of these no. 43 Madagascar Squacco Heron (Ardeola Idae) is not just rare but marked as endangered in the IUCN list.
No. 43 Madagascar Squacco Heron (Ardeola Idae)
No 106: African White Backed Vulture (Gyps Africanus)
No 118: Pallid Harrier (Circus Macrourus)
No 233: Denham Bustard (Neotis Denhami)
No 1266: Jacksons Widow Bird (Euplectes jacksoni)
Red footed falcon (Falco vespertinus)
All are marked rare in Kenya, near threatened, threatened or vulnerable for IUCN.
New Area record: a type of damsel fly called
Chlorolestes elegans
The 4th edition of the Great Rift Valley Earth Festival on Laikipia Nature Conservancy culminated with the show AQVA by Monica Maimone of La Compagnia di Valerio Festi.
The extraordinary event - with special effects especially shipped by sea from Italy - was performed to great acclaim, a standing ovation, and not a dry eye in the house in the especially constructed Aqva Theatre on the Big dam at Laikipia Nature Conservancy; 130 international artists -and 80 tribals, Sarakasi Trust slums artists- and 40 Hip Hop Parliament of the Emanuele Laikipia Peace Movement-, braved the advisories to be with us to celebrate the spirit of Kenya - a very poignant message after the post-electoral violence.
Click here to View AQVA PhotosAqva is supporting water proiects in the region.The Tugen Community and the Ol Moran community have been the first to benefit with water harvesting to the Kamur School and solar water system for the Ol Moran village already being istalled.
We hosted 46 young leaders for one week peace workshops in our Wilderness Education Centre. Coming from the Nairobi Slums recently rocked by post-electoral violence and with facilitation from the USA institute of Peace and help from the Great Lakes Peace initiative the youth spent a healing time during which visual artists from the Eden project led by Pete Hill and choreographer Nikos Lagousakos from Greece- who had gathered for the Rift Valley festival - lent their time to these youth for arts workshops as well.
At the end the youth create the Emanuele Laikipia Peace Movement to bring the Peace message to the slums through the medium of music and poetry.
We are particulary grateful to Dick Tarlow and Shelley and Donald Rubin for their support.