This video depicts the famous medinas in Marrakesh, Morocco. The medinas are huge hubs of commerce for locals and tourists. Every sort of product can be found in the medinas such as food, clothes, souvenirs, performances, etc.
Nigeria’s First Female Car Mechanic Is Changing the World
Sandra Aguebor is the first female mechanic in Nigeria and the founder of the Lady Mechanic Initiative, an organization that teaches women from diverse backgrounds how to fix cars and become financially independent. In Aguebor's garage, you’ll find tools to fix cars and so much more.
An Ethiopian farmer in the Amhara highlands outside the historic village of Lalibela. EPA/Stephen Morrison
Why Abiy Won’t Succeed Unless He Listens to Ethiopia’s Majority – its Rural People
Abiy Ahmed has made a raft of radical steps since taking over as Ethiopia’s prime minister in April 2018. He has redressed some of the wrongs committed by his own party, brokered peace with Eritrea and released political prisoners. Abiy has also invited opposition political groups back into the country and overseen the reunification of a splintered Orthodox church.
Abiy’s approach is summed up by his philosophy of medemer, or inclusivity and unity. His reforms have led millions to believe that positive revolutionary change is on its way. But there’s one significant group he has yet to address: the rural majority.
More than 80% of Ethiopians live in rural villages beyond the reach of mass media. So far, they have not been included in the ongoing national conversation. Yet, they contribute significantly to the economy by providing 85% of all employment and 95% of agriculture outputs.
Past governments exacted revenue from rural people but ignored their voices in policy making. During Haile Sellasie’s rule, rural people had to pay a share of their produce to their chiefs in order to keep their land. Mengistu Haile Mariam’s marxist regime introduced land reform based on its communist ideology but required rural people to fund and fight its wars.
The current government came to power with the promise of ensuring food security but it politicised ethnic identity and is currently focusing on rapid economic growth through the commercialisation of agriculture.
Consistently, Ethiopian governments created their own policies without listening to rural people first. But there can never truly be any hope for the country’s future if the forgotten majority continue to be ignored.
The reality for rural people
Since the 2000s, Ethiopia has been praised for fast economic growth. The government celebrates small holding farmers as the drivers of its success. But, so far, economic growth has not translated into a better life for the rural poor.
In 2015, some 18 million (20% of the total population) were affected by drought, the worst in 50 years. This year alone, 7.4 million, mostly children and women, are in need of help.
In addition to natural disasters, rural people are victims of an ill-conceived land policy. Land is controlled by the government. Farmers don’t own their land. They’re simply granted the right to use it. Land scarcity is a major problem. More than 60% of rural households survive on less than one hectare of land. A lack of access has led to young people being uprooted from rural areas.
Yet, the government leases large tracts of land to private investors to spur economic growth. From late 1990s to 2008, almost 3.5 million hectares of land was rented to investors at very low prices for a period of up to 99 years. The government advertises that 11.5 million hectares of land is currently prepared for private investment. Investors mainly focus on producing flowers, biofuel, and other export products. These in turn cause water shortages and environmental problems.
In a country of 103 million, where the survival of 80% of the people depend on subsistence agriculture, the priority given to private investors raises significant concerns.
Urban Ethiopians view foreign investors as a sign of progress. They see this land-grabbing as a sign of development. Yet the commercialisation of agriculture is being used to concentrate wealth in the hands of a small ruling class. It has increased food prices for the poor.
In Gambella, 70,000 people have been moved to new areas. Many more are believed to have been moved off their ancestral lands to make way for the country’s vision of becoming the world’s leading sugar producer.
Abiy has yet to address any of these issues. So far, he has shown no signs that he intends to change the government’s land policy.
Colonial mindset
One of the major hurdles facing the forgotten rural majority is the colonial mindset of many urbanites and people in power. The exclusion of rural people from the affairs of the state is not new. But it has intensified since 1974.
Traditionally, rural Ethiopians had institutions that influenced the power of their leaders. Leaders needed to fulfil and be accountable to tradition. They were respected more than feared.
But since the beginning of 20th Century, Ethiopian leaders sought to gain global legitimacy by bringing western institutions and knowledge to the country, excluding traditional knowledge and Ethiopian languages from higher education. Students learnt western history, culture and philosophy in English, and started to internalise the western gaze that saw Ethiopian traditional knowledge and institutions as primitive.
This colonial mindset, that has internalised western knowledge as progressive and Ethiopian knowledge as backward, is one of the major factors excluding rural people from reform and political debate. Rural people are seen as antithetical to progress, or simply ignorant of how things can be done better. For example, ten years ago the World Bank blamed Ethiopia’s “backward farming system” for acute food shortages.
Across the country, rural people understand land not as a natural resource that can be converted into cash, but as a source of life, spirituality, culture, and identity. Any cursory study of land-grabbing in Ethiopia shows that government policy has resulted in ongoing violence against the livelihood and culture of rural people. Rural people still feed the majority of the population; protecting them protects the rest.
Everything Ethiopians are proud of today, from their ancient culture to their independence from colonialism, came from the culture of rural life. It is this rich cultural knowledge that should be drawn upon, rather than continually looking out to the west.
Despite all of Abiy’s inspirational reforms, there can be no true progress for Ethiopia without listening to the rural majority.
YIRGA GELAW WOLDEYES is a lecturer of Human Rights at Curtin University.
THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON THE CONVERSATION
Feel The Sounds of Senegal
A 3 week trip in Senegal allowed Cee-Roo to capture the culture of a people and feel the power and importance of music in a country where the joy of living takes over poverty.
SOUTH AFRICA: Dinner in Khayelitsha
South African apartheid is frequently written off as a memory, something that ended decades ago. But from the start of my visit to South Africa, it became clear that the violence of that period has continued to bleed into the present, manifesting itself in clear racial and economic divides.
I visited Cape Town in the summer of 2016. Cape Town is a city of contrasts—tall, imposing mountains cast shadows over clear blue seas, and seaside villas luxuriate only a few miles away from derelict townships.
These townships are the subject of this piece. Townships in South Africa are villages that remain from apartheid-era forced exoduses of non-white people, cast out of their homes and crammed into segregated areas.
These townships still stand today. They are mostly collections of mottled tin-roof shacks and cramped streets, and they are home to 38% of South Africa’s population of 18.7 million.
From the beginning of my arrival in South Africa, I was told by locals that the townships were unsafe, especially for outsiders. But one day, I returned to my flat in the town of Observatory and one of my roommates asked me if I wanted to visit one.
The visit would be hosted, she told me, by Dine With Khayelitsha, a program founded by four young township residents designed to foster communication between their communities and those outside. Dine With Khayelitsha started in March 2015, as part of a partnership with Denmark and Switerland intended on working as a fundraiser. It then grew and has now hosted over 100 dinners. Each dinner is attended by at least one of the founders, who assures the safe transportation of every participant.
Thanks to this organization, I found myself on a bus driving into one of the townships, and then I was suddenly in a house with a bunch of strangers, eating authentic South African beans and meat.
We arrived at the township’s president’s home, though she was not there—she was outside campaigning, and instead several locals were cooking the meal for the night.
I had come with my new friend, and among the other attendees were two Dutch women, an artist from Germany, a couple from France and Morocco, and a South African black woman. Noticeably absent were white native South Africans, a fact that we asked the hosts about. Apparently, South Africans themselves still persistently ostracize the townships, creating divisions between themselves and the poorer underside of their country.
Our hosts were a few young men from the townships. They had all attended college and one worked in IT and another in software engineering, and most of them also ran after school programs such as leadership and self-esteem workshops for township kids. They had started this organization in an effort to generate more dialogue among South Africans and to raise awareness and reduce stigma concerning the townships.
First, they asked us to discuss one act of kindness we’d performed recently. As night fell, the talk began to flow more easily. We discussed the fact that so many kids from townships are forced to go through school and university, if they can make it that far, in order to get menial jobs that can support their families. For these kids, following their dreams is not an option, but it is rather an inconceivable luxury. One of the hosts said that he would love to run education programs for kids, but instead he had to become an engineer to support his family.
After dinner, as we were waiting for a bus to come pick us up, I asked one of the men if most people born into townships grow up wanting to escape, to find better lives. He told me that some did, but in his opinion, it is far more important to stay in the townships and to try to create a better life there. That’s what he had done; he’d gotten an education and a job and still lives in the townships, trying to create programs and to help uplift the state of the community.
I talked to another local who was a writer, and his eyes shone as he talked about how he can capture strange and vivid moments with words—and another who spoke passionately about his desire to hear stories from people all around the world. There was an undercurrent of kindness that seemed to link these people together that I have rarely seen; a desire to include others, to tell stories and to share parts of their lives, to not build walls but to rather create open streams of connection. To create rather than to destroy.
Conversations like this one cannot heal or make up for old wounds inflicted upon non-white people in South Africa—only physical reparations and policy changes can truly begin that process. But they are a step in the right direction—a step towards understanding that we are all part of the same global community, and the walls between us are really made of dust.
EDEN ARIELLE GORDON is a writer, musician, and avid traveler. She attends Barnard College in New York.
Escape from Egypt
This short film encompasses 21 days in Egypt. Ancient Egypt was a civilization in North Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River. Now present day Egypt covers the same area. The locations shown in this video are Cairo, Giza, Luxor, Aswan, Alexandria, and Ossis Siwa.
SOUTH AFRICA: Dancing For Freedom
Masabatha “Star” Tete has been dancing since childhood. When she discovered pantsula, an energetic dance form known for its fast-paced footwork, she knew there was nothing she’d rather do. Originating in South Africa’s townships, pantsula was created during apartheid as protest during a time when many forms of expression were restricted. Today, dancers like Star and the organization she works for, Impilo Mapantsula, are keeping the culture and history of pantsula alive through dance crews and competitions. And although traditionally considered a male form of dance, Star and other female dancers have been breaking down barriers for generations to come.
In Season 3 of ‘Parts Unknown,’ Anthony Bourdain took viewers to Tanzania. CNN
Anthony Bourdain’s Window into Africa
Anthony Bourdain might have been a celebrity chef, but viewers of his Emmy Award-winning travel show, “Parts Unknown,” didn’t tune in for curry and noodle recipes.
Cooking was simply the conceit Bourdain used to have a conversation about the culture, politics, struggles and triumphs of people around the world.
As a human geographer, I was drawn to how Bourdain upended the travel show genre, telling compelling and complicated stories about people and places most Western viewers tend to view through a lens of simplistic stereotypes or caricatures.
Even more remarkable, his work wasn’t relegated to obscurity. The show aired on CNN – a mainstream cable outlet with millions of viewers.
I was especially interested in the way the show depicted Africa, a continent Western media tends to portray using what novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie famously called a “single story” – a monolithic narrative of poverty, backwardness and hopelessness.
So in a paper published last fall, I analyzed Bourdain’s Africa episodes, which took viewers to Congo-Kinshasa, South Africa, Tanzania, Madagascar and Ethiopia.
In them, he largely rejects the “single story” approach taken by much travel writing, and later travel television, since at least the 16th century. While the stories told about Africa in the West have changed over time, they’ve often lacked nuance and multiple voices – something Bourdain was eager to provide.
A ‘single story’ of horror and hopelessness
In the imaginations of many Westerners, Africa exists as a silent, docile, set piece – a contrasting “other.”
Sociologist Jan Nederveen Pieterse notes that for centuries – through deliberate lies and well-meaning mistakes – travel writers, missionaries and popular media outlets have wrongly depicted Africa as a place devoid of civilization, a frontier of wilderness and savagery.
The dominant narrative goes something like this: If the West is stable, Africa must be chaotic; if the West is mature, Africa must be infantile; and if the West is technologically advanced, Africa must be primitive.
Reality television and travel shows often deploy these tropes. Cultural anthropologist Kathryn Mathers has written widely on media depictions of Africa, suggesting that programs like “Survior: Africa” and Nicholas Kristof’s popular newspaper columns tell predictable stories of poverty and chaos with little effort to contextualize them within a larger history.
The dynamic voices of Africans – hardly a monolithic category – are often absent in these narratives. In the rare event they do appear, they’re often presented as people without politics who exist only to welcome tourists and protect rhinos. Intrepid conservation officers and overburdened health workers are favorite characters, along with the traditional leader, the street vendor and the small child in school uniform.
Cable news coverage of Africa also tells a “single story.” As Mathers wryly notes, when the continent does get coverage, the stories can be distilled down to the same topic: “the horrors of the hopeless continent, as seen on CNN.”
Bourdain’s critical lens
But Anthony Bourdain was also “seen on CNN.”
Beginning with his memoir, “Kitchen Confidential,” Bourdain built his persona as a speaker of unspoken truths. Likewise, he steered his travel show to “parts unknown” – or, more accurately, parts only known through incomplete tropes.
In each episode, Bourdain gives a brief historical overview to remind the audience that places are made by their histories. He doesn’t gloss over the difficult ones. For example, when explaining contemporary Congo, he implicates his American viewers:
“When the new country managed to inaugurate their first democratically elected leader, Patrice Lumumba, the CIA and the British, working through the Belgians, had him killed. We helped to install this miserable bastard in his place: Joseph Mobutu.”
When Bourdain is in Madagascar, he reflects on his own conflicted relationship to tourism and colonialism.
In Season 6, Ethiopian-born, Swedish-raised chef Marcus Samuelssonjoins him in Ethiopia. Together, they explore the theme of home in the context of the African diaspora.
While one might criticize Bourdain’s perspectives, he could never be accused of taking a sanitized, apolitical approach.
In the episode on Tanzania, he visits a Maasai village – a common pit stop for travel shows about East Africa. But “Parts Unknown” rejects the stereotype that the Maasai are an isolated, backwards tribe that exists apart from the modern world.
When a villager learns that Bourdain was born in New Jersey, he tells the host that his son attends university there. The conversation picks up again later in the episode, when Bourdain and the Maasai man thoughtfully ponder globalization and the anxiety and opportunity of social change. Bourdain understands that his African hosts aren’t anchored to a static past. Instead, they are dynamic actors in a global economy.
Bourdain writes his own reflections into each script. In Madagascar, Bourdain reminds viewers that
“the camera is a liar. It shows everything. It shows nothing. It reveals only what we want. Often, what we see is seen only from a window, moving past and then gone. One window. My window. If you had been here, chances are you would have seen things differently.”
The episode then cuts to previously rolled footage but reedited in the style of Mathers’ “horrors of the hopeless.” It’s all done to show the ease with which dominant narratives are packaged and to emphasize that “Parts Unknown” seeks to convey something entirely different.
The greatest strength of “Parts Unknown” was its comfort with unknowns remaining unknown – its resistance to arriving at singular truths about complex places. Bourdain never claimed that the “artifice of making television” – as he called it – allowed more than “one window, his window.”
Yet it was an open window, a critical lens that helped his large audience disentangle the tropes so often served up by popular media. Bourdain was critical of the single story, critical of widely held stereotypes and perhaps most critical of his own position as a masterful storyteller.
THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY POSTED ON THE CONVERSATION
The Cape Town Water Crisis: Delaying Day Zero
In the Broadway musical Urinetown, people line up to use the toilet because a 20 year old drought has made private toilets a thing of the past. And when the protagonist rises up finally and allows unrestricted toilet use, the water supply completely evaporates. The final scenes ominously hint at more worrisome issues for the citizens, who, once concerned only with toilet use, most grapple with dying of thirst among other problems.
Although Urinetown is a satire, residents of Cape Town might see it as a scary prediction of their future if Day Zero arrives. As apocalyptical as it sounds, it does accurately embody the looming doomsday scenario: Day Zero is when the taps run dry. How? An unexpected three year drought, starting in 2014, drastically depleted the six dams that serve Cape Town. Whereas 20 years ago water management in Cape Town could rely on seasonal rainfall patterns and small conservation measures, it is now relying on unreliable rain and big changes.
Since Day Zero has been first predicted in early 2018, it has been continuously delayed. Projections now suggest Day Zero will occur in 2019. And in recent weeks, many are rejoicing in water returning to the dry dams. In the words of Anton Bedell, minister of Local Government, Environmental Affairs, and Development Planning: “It’s…good to see Clanwilliam dam at 20.4%. A few weeks ago the dam was below 6%.” The other dams have reflected similar increases, but the relief is only temporary as the dams await more rain—if it will come.
Theewaterskloof dam in February 2018 (source: 2oceanvibes)
Waters return in early June (source: Storm Report)
The biggest assistance in delaying Day Zero is restrictions implemented on February 1st. The main restriction was the allowance of 50 liters, a little more than 13 gallons, of water per person. Comparatively, the average individual in the United States uses 80-100 gallons of water a day and the average family over 300 gallons a day. The question of how Americans end up using so much illustrates just how little 13 gallons is for a Capetonian. For example, imagine the average bathroom break. A toilet flush requires at least 1.6 gallons with water efficient models, but if it is an older model it will need up to 4 gallons. Then you will wash your hands with about 3 gallons of water. Considering most people take at least four bathrooms breaks a day, that’s already 18.4 gallons used in one day (on a water efficient toilet): more than what one Capetonian is allowed in a single day.
So it is no wonder people are following the “if it’s yellow, let it mellow” rule and putting reminders in bathroom stalls around Cape Town. Even restaurant and bar washroom taps are shut off. But it is not just in the bathroom that changes are being made. Any use of municipal drinking water for irrigation, watering, hosing down paved surfaces, washing vehicles, or filling a private pool is not allowed. Agricultural users have to decrease water usage by 60% and commercial places by 45% compared to their pre-drought usage in 2015. And for residential units that use too much, you’ll face a fine or have to install water management devices.
And globally, Cape Town is a sign of the future. As population increases, especially in urban centers, water resources are straining to accommodate. This is against a backdrop of climate changes that favor extreme weather events like frequent droughts. What might have worked in the past, is not necessarily the solution for the future. California, Beijing, Sao Paulo, Jakarta, Mexico City are just some cities that may be the next unwilling host of Day Zero. And water shortages lead to other problems such as famine and violence. The International Panel on Climate Change predicts the Middle East and North Africa will face the most severe water shortage problems. And already, many Somalis have become climate change refugees—leaving their rural farms for the capital, Mogadishu, in hope of different sources of income with farming no longer possible. Millions more are projected in the years to come as climate change makes itself even more apparent.
It is a bleak picture, but subtle changes are happening as global leaders are becoming more aware of the looming water crisis. But we can also start at home with our own water usage. Maybe you don’t need to take a long bath after a hard day and use 36 gallons of water simply to unwind. Instead, take a quick shower and find something else to help you relax. The small changes might sound silly but it is the little things that matter as Capetonians will tell you.
TERESA NOWALK is a student at the University of Virginia studying anthropology and history. In her free time she loves traveling, volunteering in the Charlottesville community, and listening to other people’s stories. She does not know where her studies will take her, but is certain writing will be a part of whatever the future has in store.
The Zambia Project
Janssen Powers had the pleasure of shooting this piece for World Vision. He said "to say it was an eye opening trip would be an understatement. As crazy as it is to imagine drinking contaminated water everyday, it's even crazier when you realize that so many people spend the majority of their time just looking for it."
World Vision is an amazing organization doing great things in Zambia and all over the world. To learn more about their effort to bring Zambia clean water, visit worldvisionwater.org.
Child Slavery in Ghana
Thousands of children like Godson, Gideon and Foli* in Ghana live in slavery on Lake Volta, working up to 18 hours a day in the fishing industry. For these young children, the only way out of slavery is to drown or be rescued. The International Justice Mission (IJM) is finding these boys, bringing them to safety and arresting the cruel boat masters who abuse them.
Cape Town Is Running Out Of Water
AJ+'s Dena Takruri shows you how, after three years of drought, population growth and inadequate planning, Cape Town might be the first major city in the world to run out of water.
Wild Africa
Leaving the urban setting and modern life behind, for 15 years I have been privileged to travel through some of the wildest regions left on our planet — compelled to capture the unique personalities and expressiveness of the magnificent wild animals of Africa. All in black and white, all part of one big family album.
My first meeting with Africa was like a thunderbolt.
There was a part of me that wanted to return to our roots, and Africa resonated with me like the animal instinct that lies deep within each of us. After travelling for thousands of miles, I always have this incredibly vibrant feeling of being in entirely unknown territory. Africa is always evolving, free, and wild... hugely wild.
Above: Lioness (2015)
Above: Hugs of lioness (2006)
Utterly disconnected from our urban environment, for more than fifteen years I have been drawn — mind, body and soul — to photograph the remarkable animals from this land of light and contrast.
Above: Cheetah before the rain (2006)
Above: Elephants and bird (2015)
I am constantly inspired by the sense of serenity and harmony between the natural landscapes and the diverse wildlife that roams these lands.
Everything is connected and the animals are totally adapted to their environment. I take photographs based on my gut instinct. For me, the thing that matters the most is the connection.
Above: Elephant, The road is closed (2015)
Above: Elephant crossing the river (2009)
I cannot stand strict pre-visualisation or procedures that lock people into pre-formatted ways of work. My conviction is never to prepare my shots. I prefer to be guided by luck, and to be inspired by the ever-changing spectacle of wildlife. Out in the field, I often work with a local guide who will drive the car while I concentrate on taking photos. It is very important to be utterly present in the moment, and not to be disturbed.
Opportunities in wildlife photography never come twice.
Above: Zebras crossing the river (2015)
Above: Rhinos quartet (2013)
For me, there is no difference between animals and humans in terms of photography technique. When I take a picture of a lion or a giraffe, I use exactly the same approach as when I photograph people. I try to capture something of the animal’s unique personality and expressiveness, as well as their strength and sense of freedom. I believe my pictures can create a connection between the animal and viewer, as the viewers discover a personality in these animals, and realise they have emotions too.
Above: Lion in the grass (2013)
Above: Two zebras (2004)
Above: Cheetah portrait (2013)
I am always filled with a great sense of tranquility and happiness when I leave the urban setting and modern life behind — travelling for weeks on end through some of the wildest regions left on our planet.
For me, there is nothing more powerful than the strength and beauty of Nature, and yet, at the same time, it is very fragile and precarious.
Above: Elephants crossing the plain (2013)
Above: Giraffe in harmony with their natural setting (2013)
Today, the fall of wildlife in Africa and elsewhere is disastrous.
I cannot know if we will discover more effective methods to halt or reverse this devastating change. However, I choose to hope and believe that we can. I believe that people are fed up with shocking images of destruction, poaching and deforestation — and yet it is of grave importance that we share these images, as we must all know what is happening on our planet. I don’t know exactly how photography can help preserve our wild ecosystems, but I feel proud when people experience my images and understand that these animals are just as ‘human’ as we are — with a personality, and a family.
Above: Lion, The small one (2013)
I believe that we must have a sincere conscience for our fellow animals, and the devastating impact our species is having on so many of them. We must open our minds and hearts to the fact that we all part of a living, breathing planet, and recognise that we are just one piece of this wonder.
We must leave more space, more life, for all the other species, because we will not survive their extinction. It is humanity’s greatest challenge.
* * *
THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON MAPTIA
LAURENT BAHEUX
I am a self-taught French photographer inspired by the soul of nature and wildlife. I express this only in Black and White, like a big Family Album. www.laurentbaheux.com
TANZANIA: The Last Hunter Gatherers
Hunting only with bows, arrows, and their ingenuity, what marked my time with the Hadza was how remarkably happy they seemed. In their language, there is no word for “worry” and by following their ancestral ways, the Hadza truly live in the moment.
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Nairobi’s current waste disposal system is fraught with major problems. EPA/Dai Kurokawa
How Nairobi Can Fix Its Serious Waste Problem
Uncollected solid waste is one of Nairobi’s most visible environmental problems. Many parts of the city, especially the low and middle-income areas, don’t even have waste collection systems in place. In high income areas, private waste collection companies are booming. Residents pay handsomely without really knowing where the waste will end up.
The Nairobi county government has acknowledged that with 2,475 tons of waste being produced each day, it can’t manage. Addis Ababa Ethiopia has a similar size population but only generates 1,680 tons per day.
Nairobi’s current waste disposal system is fraught with major problems. These range from the city’s failure to prioritise solid waste management to inadequate infrastructure and the fact that multiple actors are involved whose activities aren’t controlled. There are over 150 private sector waste operators independently involved in various aspects of waste management. To top it all there’s no enforcement of laws and regulations.
Nairobi’s waste disposal problems go back a long way and there have been previous efforts to sort them out. For example in the early 1990s, private and civil society actors got involved, signing contractual arrangements with waste generators. They often did this without informing or partnering with the city authorities.
More recently other strategies were put in place, some of which left parts of the city clean. They worked for a period, but unfortunately they weren’t sustainable because no institutional changes were made.
But there’s hope on the horizon with a new Nairobi Governor – Mike Sonko Mbuvi. He should learn from the mistakes of the past and put a new regime in place that addresses the structural problems that have plagued the city. This would include an improved improved collection and transportation plan that incorporates the private sector.
Learning from the past
In 2005 John Gakuo took over the management of city affairs as the Town Clerk. During his tenure (2005-2009) he made a deliberate effort to introduce new approaches.
When he took over the city only had 13 refuse trucks. They were able to collect a paltry 20% of the waste produced by the city. To overcome this, the authorities contracted private waste collection firms to collect, transport and dispose waste at Dandora dump site which is the biggest and the only designated site. This quickly boosted the total waste collected with levels oscillating between 45%-60%.
Other changes included:
The development of a proper waste collection and transportation schedule with market operators. This meant waste from open-air markets was brought to identified collection points on specific days.
A weighbridge to measure amounts of waste disposed at Dandora was introduced. An important way to know disposal levels vis-a-vis collection and generation.
Enforcement officers were deployed to prevent dumping in parts of the city that were notorious for waste accumulation.
Over 2,000 arrests were made, making residents aware that indiscriminate dumping was illegal and punishable under the city authority laws.
All these efforts paid off – for parts of the city. For example, the heart of the city, the Central Business District, was cleaned up and waste was brought under control.
But crucial elements that would have ensured that the changes were sustainable were left out. For example, no new physical infrastructure, like the construction of waste transfer centres and proper landfills, were built, nor was new equipment bought.
After Gakuo’s regime, the next one worth a mention is Evans Kidero’s regime (2013 - 2017). It can be credited for trying to fast-track the implementation of the Solid Waste Management Master Plan which assessed the waste management problem of Nairobi and developed projects that could be implemented to ensure a sustainable system was in place.
This ensured that while the private sector needed to help with waste collection and transportation, the government was key to institutionalising waste management services.
Thirty waste collection trucks were bought and serious investment was made into heavy equipment. And in an effort to streamline waste collection a franchise system of waste collection was rolled out. This involved dividing the city into nine zones to make it easier to manage waste.
The franchise arrangement gave private operators a monopoly over both waste and fee collections, but relied heavily on the public body for enforcement of the system.
The franchising system failed due to a lack of enforcement by the city. In addition, in-fighting broke out between the private waste collection firms that had individual contracts with waste generators and the appointed contractor.
But other changes introduced during this period were more successful and had longer lasting effect. For example new laws were introduced designed to create order in the sector. These included the solid waste management act in 2015. This classified waste and also created a collection scheme based on the sub-county system. It also put penalties in place.
In addition, in 2016, 17 environment officers were appointed and posted to the sub-counties to plan and supervise waste management operations alongside other environmental issues.
These changes planted the seeds of an efficient and working waste management system. But the regime fell down when it come to enforcement. This meant that the gains that had been made were soon lost.
What needs to be done
Expectations are high for the new regime that has taken over. It should look to fast-track the following programmes:
Implement an improved collection and transportation plan that incorporates private sector and civil society groups;
Establish a disposal facility to reduce secondary pollution from the city’s dumps;
Decommission the Dandora dump site;
Implement the re-use, reduction, and recycling of waste;
Establish intermediate treatment facilities to reduce waste and its hazards;
Create an autonomous public corporation;
Put in place legal and institutional reforms to create accountability;
Implement a financial management plan, and
Implement private sector involvement.
Nairobi can fix it’s waste disposal problems. All it needs is focused attention, good governance and the implementation of systems that ensure changes outlive just one administration.
This article was originally published on The Conversation.
LEAH OYAKE-OMBIS
Part-time lecturer and Director of the Africa Livelihood Innovations for Sustainable Environment Consulting Group, University of Nairobi
Feel The Sounds of Senegal
A 3 week trip in Senegal allowed filmmaker Cee-Roo to capture the culture of a people and feel the power and importance of music in a country where the joy of living takes over poverty.
African Journals | Chronicles from the Road, Part One: Landscapes
The road trip started in Cape town were we spent a month shooting a campaign for Fayrouz, a product by Heineken. From there we had no plan, but by meeting locals, listening to their stories and being open-minded about every adventure we came across, we ended up in Windhoek, Namibia with a 4×4 monster truck which we called Bowser (super Mario kart). The route formed by itself, in a natural way. We got invited to shoot photos for lodges, guesthouses and hotels in Otjiwarongo, Swakopmund, Walvisbay, Rietoog and then we continued on our way to Sossusvlei. There is a big German influence visible in the cities/villages, especially on the Skeleton Coast. You will find Bratwurst on the menu, for sure. Namibia was a German colony until 1904. The route from Walvisbay to Sossusvlei – the C14 – was insane, unforgettable. It is supposed to be a four hour journey, but it took us seven. After hours of sand and drought, something magical happens… You drive through this big mountain, and afterwards you’re suddenly driving through green and purple landscapes – so unreal, like you’ve arrived on the film set of The Lord of The Rings. All the way to the red dunes of Sossusvlei there is so much wildlife to see, and you only pass through one ‘village’ Solitaire. I say ‘village’, but it is really just a petrol station where you can eat apple pie with the few local people who live there. It is amazing. Sossusvlei is like the cherry on the cake; from 6am the colours are changing like the wind. Incredible.
Next stop: Victoria Falls. One of the Seven World Wonders. We arrived in Zimbabwe, but our accommodation was in Zambia (the Falls are on the border between the two countries). Zambia was such a surprise; rainforest, monkeys everywhere, snakes and the best local market – the Maramba Market – where you can meet local people, have fun, and drink cheap local beer, Mozi beer! You can easily spend a whole day at Billy’s Café, listening to stories, playing pool and enjoying local goods like cassava pate (pretty weird stuff to be honest). The music is loud and everyone will dance the day away.
From Zambia to Botswana involves taking a lot of different public transfers, ending up at the border where you take an Industrial-Truck-Ferry. Trucks wait in line – sometimes for more than two weeks! – as the ferry can only carry one truck at a time, with a bunch of people around it. In Botswana, the public bus trips were epic. From Kasane to Maun (18 hours), from Maun to Gaborone (14 hours) from Gaborone to Jo’burg (15 hours). It was the rainy season and a lot of roads where flooded.
Jo’burg was our last stop. This city made a deep deep impression on us. It was so electric, in a lot of ways. You feel the different layers of the city from the past, but you also feel new energies. There is a lot happening, the city with all her different areas is very dynamic and moving. It’s hard to explain the way we feel about this city, we would recommend everyone to go there, to experience it in your own way.
Showing respect and interest in local people is so important. We met interesting people everyday and it was a real honour to hear their voices, their stories and to have chats about the little things in life too. The city center is not the nicest place to go at the moment, but there are a lot of upcoming areas like Maboneng (meaning ‘Place of Light’), Melville, Braamfontein, Fox Precinct and Newtown.
This city brought us a lot, we were really inspired by the people, the vibe and also the deep history that this city is carrying. BBC describes how Johannesburg has changed from a ‘no-go to gotta-go’ – that says a lot. Things are changing, but like all important world changes, it takes time.
See you soon dear Africa, you are in our hearts.
THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON ROAM MAGAZINE.
MANOUK QUINT
Manouk Robina Quint is a 25 year-old photographer currently living in Amsterdam. She has loved creating stories for as long as she can remember. Manouk now has her own photography business; Hans en Grietje – donotsaycheese.com. Together with her soulmate, Hidde van der Linden, they began by capturing the party-life of Amsterdam in clubs, parties and festivals. Now the duo photograph food, interior, fashion, weddings, portraits and travel, also writing concepts and stories to create campaigns for brands.
PLS DO NOT COUNT THIS
This short film captures a Johannesburg cyclist on his daily commute as he playfully engages with the sprawling city. The city is seen at its busiest hours while the cyclist zooms past cars and buses. Various scenery of Johannesburg is seen through this authentic lens, including the graffiti that was the inspiration of the film's title.
Ethiopia
Filmmaker Leo Plunkett takes viewers around Ethiopia through shots of the mountains, farmland, and red rocks. The short film shows the natural beauty of Ethiopia and captures many different areas of the country. Music by Jon Hopkins.
The Lion Guardians
With human-wildlife conflict on the rise in East Africa, the hunt for a long-term, viable conservation solution is on. From conservancies that benefit the Maasai landowners, to the transformation of their young warriors into lion protectors, to “predator-proofing” livestock, a massive cultural shift is underway.
DAWN IS JUST BREAKING WHEN KAMUNU SAITOTI SETS OUT ACROSS THE AMBOSELI BUSH IN SEARCH OF LIONS.
On first glance, he appears much like any other Maasai warrior. Lean and tall, his dark red shuka is wrapped around his torso and waist concealing his only weapon, a long knife with a simple wooden handle. Brightly colored beads adorn Saitoti’s neck, ears, forearms, and ankles, and his feet, far more weathered than the rest of his body, are only partially covered by dusty sandals fashioned from discarded car tires.
“I killed my first lion when I was 21,” Saitoti says as he scans the horizon. In all, he has killed five lions. This, he says, was an integral part of his family history, part of being raised as a moran, a Maasai warrior. “My brother and father have also killed lions.”
A male lion surveys his territory on the outskirts of Masai Mara National Reserve.
Traditional Maasai beads adorn Saitoti’s ankles.
The Maasai are traditionally a nomadic people subsisting almost exclusively on the milk, blood, and meat of cattle grazed on East Africa’s vast rangeland, once home to endless numbers of wild animals.
In the past, lion killing for the Maasai was as much about cultural tradition as it was about protecting their livestock from predators. To hunt and kill a lion was a critical right of passage known as olamayio — the way in which all young Maasai males became men. The tradition also created a powerful connection between warriors and lions, with each young moran receiving a lion name after his first successful hunt. Saitoti’s lion name, Meiterienanka, means “one who is faster than all the others.”
But traditions are beginning to change. On this day, in place of a spear, Saitoti carries a radio telemetry kit. He unfolds the antenna in a manner suggesting he has done this countless times before, and looks around in search of a hill — not an easy task in a landscape as flat as this. He settles for the remnants of an abandoned termite mound and begins to scan for a signal. Once he has a sense of the direction the signal is coming from, he packs away the kit and begins walking, dust trailing his brisk march along the well-used track.
Standing on the remains of an old termite mound, Lion Guardian Kamunu Saitoti scans for a signal. A number of the lions in the area have been fitted with radio collars.
For the next three hours, Saitoti stops only to look for signs of lions, or to talk to herders. Most tracks he sees are too old to bother with, but as the sun nears its zenith, he finds a set that elicits visible excitement — a departure from his otherwise solemn demeanor. These are the tracks of lion cubs, young ones, and very fresh. Patience, however, will be required here. The narrow trail leads into a maze of dense shrubs, and that is no place to follow a lioness with cubs — even for someone as experienced as Saitoti is.
At 36, Saitoti is a seven-year veteran, and one of Kenya’s three regional coordinators, of an organization called Lion Guardians. Established in 2007, the program is dedicated to finding ways for Maasai and lions to coexist. At its core is a shift in the relationship between the moran and the lion:
Hunters have become protectors. This profound change in perspective is a critical component of East Africa’s lion conservation efforts.
But the Guardians have a lot of ground to cover — just 45 Maasai warriors patrol a million acres of Kenyan rangelands — and human-wildlife conflict is a bigger problem than one organization, or one approach, can solve.
Lion Guardian Kamunu Saitoti takes meticulous notes about his observations, including GPS readings of animal tracks.
Lion Guardians is just one of a number of small- and medium-sized efforts by government officials, NGOs, and locals to reduce human-wildlife conflicts in Kenya and elsewhere in Sub-Saharan Africa. As human populations in the region have exploded, consuming increasing amounts of wildlife habitat in the process, the numbers of some of the region’s most iconic and important species have been in steep decline. Populations of many of Kenya’s large herbivores have fallen by 70 to 90 percent since the late 1970s. And as their prey have become more scarce, so too have lions.
Scientists estimate that lion populations have fallen by more than 40 percent in the past 20 years, and the 20,000 or so wild lions that remain in Africa occupy just 8 percent of the species’ historical range.
In many ways, the need for such intervention has never been greater. Yet, in a region where droughts are common and famine is never completely out of sight, finding a path toward peaceful coexistence between herders and the predators that hunt their livestock will require a great deal of persistence, creativity, and a shift in how the region’s wildlife is valued.
For most Maasai, the response to finding a leopard in your goat pen, surrounded by several slain goats, would be simple and quick: Kill the leopard. There would be no repercussions, as Kenya’s wildlife laws allow citizens to dispatch so-called problem animals. One particular young male leopard, who like his mother before him, had been terrorizing the small village of Ngerende, was certainly a good fit for that description.
Known to a number of neighboring communities for years, he had already killed hundreds of goats — losses that are keenly felt in what is one of Kenya’s poorest regions, and a hotbed of human-wildlife conflict. With the leopard’s paw now caught in the fencing of a traditional pen, or boma, as livestock enclosures are called, it seems there can be only one possible outcome. But the owner of this particular boma, Mark Ole Njapit, is no ordinary Maasai.
Mark Ole Njapit, who also known as “Pilot,” is a respected elder in the Masaai community of Ngerende.
“I understand the value of wildlife for the future of our people,” says Njapit (48), a Ngerende community elder known by most as “Pilot.”
“Everyone here was very upset and wanted to spear the leopard, but I calmed them down and called KWS (the Kenya Wildlife Service).” Fortunately for the leopard, KWS officers were treating some elephants nearby and responded quickly. After tranquilizing the cat, they were able to cut him free and move him to a new area where he would be less likely to get into trouble.
That was six months ago. Today, Pilot is supervising as members of his village work in partnership with the Anne K. Taylor Fund (AKTF) — an organization working to reduce human-wildlife conflicts — to construct his new boma.
Workers stretch out the chain-link fencing for Pilot’s new ‘boma.’ The process typically takes two days, one for setting the posts in cement, and another for attaching the fencing.
The enclosure that the AKTF team is building is formidable, with welded corner posts interspersed with termite-proof eucalyptus timber poles, all set in concrete. The chain-link fence is stretched tight, seven feet above ground and another foot buried in the soil; the fence is designed to be virtually impossible for a predator to push over, climb, or dig beneath. (While a leopard could easily scale a similar-sized fence constructed entirely of wood, they tend to avoid chain-link fencing.) Today, after more than two years and nearly a hundred of the latest iteration of AKTF bomas constructed, the program’s record remains intact: Not a single livestock animal protected by one of these enclosures has been killed by a wild predator.
Members of Pilot’s family stand at the gate of his newly constructed predator-proof ‘boma,’ just a few miles from the edge of the Masai Mara National Reserve.
The effectiveness of the new bomas means that they are in high demand among the locals. And while AKTF doesn’t normally work in villages as far north as Ngerende, when Pilot reached out, the program’s construction director, Felix Masaku, decided to make an exception. “Here is a man whose small village loses maybe ten goats a week choosing not to kill the leopard that is doing much of that damage. That is very unusual, and it is important to support this man so others might follow his example.”
In general, AKTF prioritizes cases in which livestock losses have been greatest. “This is about conservation and co-existence,” Masaku continues. “We want to minimize conflict and retaliatory killings. If someone is losing five goats and two cows every week, that person is more likely to try to kill predators than someone who loses maybe one goat a month.”
A traditional ‘boma’ that has been constructed of wood and thorny branches.
By reducing the vulnerability of livestock to predation, this program and others like it aim to reduce, if not eliminate, retaliatory killings, known as olkiyioi. This practice poses a grave threat to lions in particular, especially when angry cattle owners turn to poison rather than spears with the intention of wiping out entire prides of lions. In recent years, there have been a number of high-profile killings. For example, several members of the Marsh pride (of BBC Big Cat Diary fame) were deliberately poisoned in the Masai Mara National Reserve (MMNR) in 2015, and six lions, including two cubs, were speared to death outside Nairobi National Park in early 2016.
One troubling detail about the slaughter of the Marsh pride members is that it was carried out by Maasai seeking revenge for cattle killed while being grazed illegally inside the reserve. This practice is not uncommon. In fact, a paper published in the Journal of Zoology in 2011 estimated that by the early 2000s, livestock made up 23 percent of the MMNR’s mammal biomass — up from a mere 2 percent a few decades earlier. Today, this figure greatly exceeds that of any resident wildlife species in the protected area with the exception of buffalo. This is as much a sign of declining wildlife populations as it is of human incursions into the reserve, and it underscores significant challenges both in terms of protecting livestock and preventing human-wildlife conflicts.
As Anne Taylor, the founder of AKTF, put it:
“Inside the bomas is one thing, but keeping cattle or livestock safe if they are literally brought into the lions’ den is virtually impossible.”
Wildebeest pause before crossing the Sand River. While the Masai Mara’s resident wildebeest are all but gone, their numbers decimated primarily by agricultural expansion, each year, more than a million cross the border from Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park.
For many Maasai today, lions and other predators have become an expensive nuisance at best, and a source of deep-seated resentment at worst. In general, this resentment is not directed toward the predators themselves, but toward a government — and the world at large — which often appears to place more value on the big cats (and the tourism dollars they generate) than on Maasai lives and livelihoods.
National parks and reserves cover a mere 8 percent of Kenya’s land area and support only a third of its wildlife. The remaining two-thirds of the country’s wild animals inhabit private and communal rangelands. This is land that they share with the Maasai, Samburu, and other pastoral people who have been here for thousands of years. Many think it is here, outside of the parks and reserves, that the future of Kenya’s wildlife will be decided.
According to a recent report co-authored by Panthera, WildAid, and the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit, loss of habitat due to agricultural expansion, which invariably pushes wildlife into closer contact with farmers and pastoralists, is the underlying factor of all major threats that lions face.
To many, the conversion of unprotected rangelands to agriculture might seem inevitable as the region’s population grows, but Calvin Cottar, a fourth-generation Kenyan whose great-grandfather emigrated from Iowa in 1915 and today runs a safari service in partnership with the Maasai community, disagrees. According to Cottar, it all comes down to economic security.
“We are talking about some of the world’s poorest people,” Cottar says. “For them it is about survival.
“Why should we expect them to care about lions or elephants when they are struggling to put food on the table ... Wildlife is costing them money, not earning them money, and that is what has to change.”
Calvin Cottar is presented with a goat as a token of appreciation for building Olpalagilagi Primary School, as well as funding salaries and meals. In the long run, the hope is that land lease fees will enable locals to fund their own projects, bringing greater autonomy.
Toward this end, while working with the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), the Cottars Wildlife Conservation Trust has initiated the formation of several district wildlife associations in an attempt to help local landowners acquire ownership rights to the wildlife residing on their lands. Because all wild animals in Kenya have historically been considered property of the state, benefits to the local communities that have to co-exist with these creatures have generally been few and far between.
Now in his 50s, Cottar says there is much more to be done. He is more convinced than ever that the future of Kenya’s wildlife lies with the people sharing the land with them — and with a shift in government policy.
“It’s really quite simple,” Cottar explains. “We all have to pay for ecosystem services. Pay the Maasai landowners a monthly lease for their land in return for leaving it intact. The problem is that wildlife has no value to them, whereas cattle and commercial agriculture do.”
While removing snares, building livestock enclosures, and monitoring lion populations are all important management practices, Cottar says, they don’t solve the root cause of human-wildlife conflict. Wild animals are basically a nuisance and a liability to the Maasai, he explains.
“We have to make maintaining wildlife the most productive land use, and do this in a way that respects the Maasai lifestyle and culture.”
Local schoolchildren perform a traditional Maasai dance to open proceedings at a meeting hosted by Olpalagilagi Primary School.
That is why Cottar now finds himself sitting in a circle with perhaps 50 Maasai — young and old, men and women. The topic for discussion, just as it has been for the last three years, is the formation of the Olderkesi Conservancy, on the land where Cottar’s safari camp currently stands.
In general, the conservancy model consists of land being leased directly from its owners for conservation purposes. Olderkesi is slightly different in that the 100,000-hectare ranch is yet to be subdivided, making it the last communally owned ranch left in Kenya. As a result, the land will be leased from a trust representing all 6,000 land owners, and because the agreement involves the Maasai, complete consensus is required before anything can be signed. In Maasailand, patience is not so much a virtue as an absolute necessity.
Members of the Maasai community meet at Olpalagilagi Primary School to discuss the formation of the Olderikesi Wildlife Conservancy.
Joining Cottar in the circle is one of the community’s most respected elders, Kelian Ole Mbirikani (58), a member of the Olderkesi Land Committee and Chairman of the Olentoroto land owners group, which holds the deeds to the land immediately surrounding Cottar’s safari camp. Mbirikani is also one of the key driving forces behind the conservancy initiative.
“The Maasai depend almost completely on their cattle,” Mbirikani explains, “so convincing them that it is possible to have both wildlife and livestock at the same time is our biggest challenge. In their experience, when land is set aside for wildlife, all of the cattle disappear. That’s what national parks do.”
Kelian Ole Mbirikani, a member of the Olderkesi Land Committee and Chairman of the Olentoroto land owners group, with his cattle.
Mbirikani is convinced the conservancy concept can work, though. He and a group of other Maasai traveled with Cottar recently to conservancies as far north as Samburu. There, they saw wildlife and met landowners who are still able to graze their cattle. “The people are really benefitting,” Mbirikani says. “Their children are being educated all through university level with the money from the conservancies. That is what we want for our people, too.”
The AKTF team spend much of their time searching for and removing snares from inside the Masai Mara National Reserve. Although the snares are set primarily to catch herbivores they are indiscriminate killers, also trapping lions, leopards, and other predators.
There are nine other conservancies around the MMNR, and a handful more in other parts of the country, which all make regular, direct payments to local landowners. Similar approaches have been employed by Wilderness Safaris in Namibia and the Nature Conservancy in the United States, among others, and while none can be said to offer financial benefits on the same scale as Olderkesi, Cottar is clearly not alone in seeing this as a promising solution.
The snares displayed here by the members of the AKTF anti-poaching team were found during a single morning’s patrol in the Masai Mara National Reserve.
Indeed, two studies published last year demonstrate the effectiveness of Kenya’s conservancy approach. According to one of these assessments, despite lack-luster political support conservancies managed to achieve “direct economic benefits to poor landowner households, poverty alleviation, rising land values, and increasing wildlife numbers.” The other study saw a direct positive effect on lion populations within Kenya’s conservancies, with a nearly three-fold increase in just ten years.
However, while these results seem promising, there will always be areas outside conservancy boundaries — borderlands and buffer zones — where human-wildlife conflict are bound to continue. There is simply not enough funding to expand conservancies enough to eliminate these conflict zones.
The question, then, is whether people can learn to co-exist with lions and other wildlife even when there is no monthly payment to be collected.
Lion Guardian and accomplished tracker Kamunu Saitoti keeps a lookout.
BACK IN THE BUSH, KAMUNU SAITOTI WAITS PATIENTLY, HOPING TO GLIMPSE THE NEW LION CUBS WHEN THEY FINALLY EMERGE FROM THE THICKET.
He has been joined by a younger Lion Guardian, Kikanai Ole Masarie, and not long after, a battered Land Cruiser arrives with one of the organization’s founders, Director of Science Stephanie Dolrenry. The two warriors pile into the vehicle and they all set off in search of the cubs. “These lions are not like those in the parks,” Dolrenry explains. “There’s no tourism here, so they are not habituated to people or cars. We’ll be lucky if we find them at all. They can be extremely shy, especially with young cubs.”
But this is a lucky day, it seems. With thorny acacia bushes screeching against the glass and metal of the bouncing vehicle, the team suddenly finds itself in a veritable crowd of cats. Dolrenry, like the Guardians, is able to identify them all. Mere meters from the car, Meoshi, her three cubs, and her mother, Selenkay, lounge in the shade. A few dozen paces away, but on their way to join them, Meoshi’s sister Nenki with her own four cubs. Much smaller than Meoshi’s, these were the young lions whose tracks Saitoti was following. This is the first time anyone has laid eyes on this new generation.
The team’s first sighting of lioness Nenki’s four young cubs.
“Selenkay is a bit of a celebrity around here,” Dolrenry says. “She causes problems like no other lion, but she’s a tough one, and it’s hard not to admire her.” Saitoti nods. Selenkay is his favorite lion — her guile and tenacity are something to be respected. She and her family frequently target cattle and are well known for giving the Guardians plenty of headaches. She has been hunted more times than anyone cares to remember. One of her sisters has fallen victim to poison, and so too has one of her mates, while another sister was killed by spear. She has endured three male takeovers, and has even attacked a Maasai moran to protect her young cubs. Like the owners of the livestock she frequently kills, Selenkay is a true warrior.
Yet Selenkay’s legacy is far greater than her own reputation. Her longevity, itself the result of the unyielding commitment of Saitoti, Masarie, and the other Guardians, combined with the growing tolerance of the Maasai inhabiting these rangelands, has helped to connect populations in vital conservation areas, and has added much-needed genetic diversity to established prides in the region. One of her sons has made it as far north as Nairobi National Park where he is now breeding successfully.
A pair of male lions seeks respite from the heat in the shade of a tree.
Saitoti did not become a Guardian because he loved lions. Instead, he was in trouble and needed a job. Arrested for being part of an illegal hunt, his father had to sell three cows to have him released on bail. That made him reconsider his path. Killing lions, despite bringing prestige and honor, also brought hardship. “For the first two years my feelings about lions were the same,” Saitoti says. “This was just a job. But slowly, things began to change. They give food for my family, they help educate my children, I even buy veterinary medicine for my cattle with my salary from the lions.”
Lion Guardian Kikanai Ole Masarie celebrates the sighting of lioness Nenki’s cubs with a fresh cup of tea. Note the Lion Guardians symbol hung around his neck, alongside his traditional handmade Maasai beads.
“And we still get the girls!” Masarie chips in with a broad smile, referring to the social status that killing lions — and, more recently, protecting lions — can bring to an eligible young Maasai man. At 24, he is part of a younger generation of Guardians, and his words are significant, as they hint at an ability for long-held Maasai beliefs and traditions to change. “The other warriors mostly stay at home, but here we are, close to the lions every day, tracking them and finding lost cattle. The girls know we must be very brave!”
Saitoti smiles and continues, “For me, now, I feel there is no difference between the lions and my cows at home. I care about them equally.”
LEARN HOW YOU CAN HELP TODAY
The success of conservancies like Olderkesi, supported by Cottars Wildlife Conservation Trust, indicates their importance as long-term viable solutions for conservation in partnership with the landowners themselves, the Maasai people. Explore more about other Masai Mara Conservancies here.
The Lion Guardians organisation have been conserving lions and preserving cultures since 2007. Learn more about their work and donate to support them at lionguardians.org. The 750 predator-proof bomas constructed by the Anne K. Taylor Fund have saved many lives and you can learn more and support their work at annektaylorfund.org. I hope you will join me in supporting the work of these dedicated organisations!
THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON MAPTIA.
MARCUS WESTBERG
Marcus Westberg is a a Swedish photographer, writer, conservationist, and guide working primarily in Sub-Saharan Africa.