The LWF's Environmental Education (EE) programme

 

The long-term sustainability of conservation efforts in Laikipia is inextricably linked to the environmental awareness of local schoolchildren, the main benefactors of the Environmental Education (EE) programme. The LWF hopes that by encouraging involvement through environmental education, the next generation of responsible, committed Kenyans will work for the sustained conservation of the Laikipia ecosystem. The great majority of Kenyan children have never seen wildlife in their natural environment, despite living in a country with rich wildlife resources and an economy that relies so heavily on wildlife tourism.

Thus LWF sees as one of its key roles to raise awareness of environmental issues and provide environmental education services, which supplement but do not duplicate the National Curriculum, to schoolchildren in the Laikipia District.

The programme is lead by a dedicated Environmental Education Officer (EEO), who delivers innovative and fun lectures and field trips to approximately 3,200 schoolchildren and 250 teachers and adults each year from over 130 schools in the District. The programme covers an area of about 10,000 sq km of rural and remote Kenya using a 30-seat converted lorry, the now famous and very popular Environmental Education Bus. Many of Kenya’s community wildlife projects now use the Forum’s successful model.

Since its launch in 2004, the EE programme’s principle activities have been:

• The bus making trips to conservancies with both school groups and community groups
• The EEO teaching pupils, students and community groups on game drives
• The EEO together with the Community Liaison Officers (CLOs) attending festivals with environmental displays

The EEP has now been in place for five years (launched January 2004), during which the education bus has made 415 trips to conservancies to support their classroom learning and carried 12,976 adults and children, whilst raising awareness of the importance of environmental issues for their own, and the Ewaso ecosystem’s, health and wellbeing.

The popularity of the EEP has increased over the years and the bus is working at full capacity: demand is such that schools are rationed in the number of trips they can book in a year. In addition, adult education through exposure tours to conservation-based enterprises and other initiatives in the District is increasingly being emphasised.

To build upon the existing EEP, LWF is developing a five-year EEP strategy with technical input from a proposed new EE Sub-Committee. To deliver maximum conservation impact the EEP will be refined, with the ultimate aim to:

• narrow the focus of the teaching
• broaden the scope for delivering the programme
• refine the mechanisms for effective delivery
• improve the materials, content and operations of the EEP to support better the existing national school curriculum, and increase its impact throughout Laikipia District