Educating local communities in Mkomazi (The Horn, Spring 2007)
Over the past 14 years, the George Adamson Wildlife Preservation Trust (GAWPT) has been supporting an outreach programme in the villages surrounding Mkomazi Game Reserve. This has been a huge undertaking, encompassing 41 villages in three districts and two administrative regions. Being a small wildlife charity undertaking a wide range of disciplines, our Trustees initially made a decision to focus efforts on educational and water services as a priority, based on the needs of the people and the community conservation policies laid down by the Government of Tanzania. To this end, we have constructed an entire secondary school, refurbished and upgraded nine other secondary schools and eight primary schools, de-silted dams in rural areas, provided water pumps for villages, refurbished a medical dispensary, supported women’s groups, supported the District Councils with municipal works and road works and many other initiatives.
We have many other schools to refurbish, and yet the time has come to run a simultaneous programme for environmental education. Save the Rhino, Chester Zoo, Tusk Trust and GAWPT have joined together to launch and run this programme, which initially involves the major step of purchasing and modifying a bus and the training of an Environmental Education Officer (EEO). The new bus will act as a mobile classroom, travelling to the schools and community groups in the villages surrounding the game reserve. The EEO will be able to teach the schoolchildren and villagers about wildlife conservation, and together with audio-visual presentations and the dissemination of educational materials, we hope this will provide a much-needed link between district authorities, community groups, wildlife and nature conservation.
The bus will also be able to bring selected schoolchildren into the Game Reserve and significantly the Mkomazi Rhino Sanctuary, managed by GAWPT since 1997 and supported by Save the Rhino, where they will be able to experience wildlife in a safe environment, watch Rhino Sanctuary personnel at work and engage in discussion. We hope that these efforts will encourage active involvement in conservation and will help the local communities understand the importance and benefits of Mkomazi Game Reserve’s imminent transition to National Park status and the sustained value of Black Rhino to the nation.
As part of this initiative, Save the Rhino and Chester Zoo took the GAWPT Operations Manager, Elisaria Nnko, up to Laikipia in Kenya to see the Laikipia Wildlife Forum’s EE programme in operation, with Ephantus Mugendi Mudo at its helm. Elisaria was able to gain extremely useful knowledge about this programme and to determine how it has to be adapted to fit the different environmental, tribal, geographical and political characteristics of Mkomazi.
We have also decided to build an education centre with educational materials and audio-visual displays so that the children can spend an informative time in the game reserve and learn about the Mkomazi project as a whole. The story of Mkomazi over the years is an interesting one, and we feel it would be good for the children to see photos of Mkomazi: in the 1960s, when there were over 400 rhino and 10,000 elephant; Mkomazi in the 1980s, when it was a devastated wasteland with no rhino and just 11 elephants; Mkomazi in the 1990s, when rehabilitation was underway, the Rhino Sanctuary was being constructed, and translocation of black rhino from South Africa to Mkomazi was taking place; and finally Mkomazi today, during its transition to National Park status.
The EE programme has huge capacity. It can even expand into local football leagues, running and supporting competitions, under the banner of rhino conservation. The educational materials, as well as the pens, hats and badges that will be handed out, will all follow this central theme of rhino and wildlife conservation – and we are fortunate enough to have the backing of Save the Rhino and Chester Zoo for these materials.
In February 2007 Save the Rhino, TUSK and GAWPT launched the EE programme with a fantastic party in London to raise funds for the bus and EEO. And after much consultation with master mechanics throughout Tanzania and Kenya, we have now bought a chassis and a bus body which are already being modified. The bus itself will be named ‘Rafiki wa Faru’ (Friend of the Rhino), brightly painted in local Tinga Tinga style.
So, as always, our sincerest thanks to Save the Rhino for their incredible and far-reaching support, which encompasses the critical day-to-day management of the Mkomazi Rhino Sanctuary and also the environmental education of the surrounding communities.
Lucy Fitzjohn
George Adamson Wildife Preservation Trust
Grants
So far, Save the Rhino and Tusk Trust have raised nearly £80,000 for the EE programme in Mkomazi. Chester Zoo has so far given £10,972; Mkomazi Matatu raised approximately £20,500; Capital International gave £7,334. N M Rothschild gave £250; ICAP has given £40,500. The total cost for the first three years of the programme as £97,000, so we still need to raise another £17,000 to complete the campaign. If you’d like to contribute, please email petra@savetherhino.org for details.