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Conservation and Community News

4/30/2018

Olympic Success
In a previous version of Classic Africa News we reported on the third annual "Maasai Olympics", a ground-breaking initiative by the Big Life Foundation to replace lion-killing with athletic prowess as a rite of passage to manhood among the Maasai. During a recent stay at Ol Donyo Lodge (the home-base for the program), Pierre had a first-hand opportunity to see the positive results of these efforts.

"My guide and I were returning to the lodge by vehicle in the evening twilight, after a fabulous horse-back safari, when an old Maasai moran stepped out of the bushes robed in his traditional red shuka and carrying a spear, and started speaking to my guide in Maa. It turned out that, while bringing his cattle back to their kraal for the night, he had passed a couple of big male lions and was eager to tell us about them. He even offered to accompany us to the spot where he had last seen them, leaving his cattle to make their own way back to the kraal."

"By the time we reached the spot, the lions had moved into thick bush for the evening, but my guide was confident that we would find them in the morning - sure enough, they were there in all their majesty when we returned shortly after sunrise. As we sat and admired the two lions, my guide thought aloud: You know, not along ago that man would have gathered his friends and togther they would have killed these lions so that they could not steal cattle; now he wants them to be alive so that you can see them.

 

The Maasai Olympics is just one part of the conservation success story in this area. The land is owned by a collective of 4,000 Maasai families who receive substantial rent and preferential employment opportunities from the lodge as well as the Big Life Foundation. The Maasai are also refunded at market value for any cattle lost to lion predation, and the Big Life Foundation employs over 300 rangers for anti-poaching patrols across the vast Amboseli-Tsavo-Kilimanjaro ecosystem, including the beautiful Chyulu Hills where Ol Donyo is located. From a dangerous nuisance, the lions have now become a valuable economic asset to the local Maasai, and lion deaths have dropped from 40 a year to just 2 in 2017. Now that's an olympic accomplishment to be proud of!


4/30/2018
Photogrpahy Forum
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