Below is the report from Dr Lucy King of the Save The Elephants organisation regarding her recent trip to Sagalla and if you’d like a reminder of how the Beehive Project began take a look at the following:
Regards
Cliff
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From: Lucy King
Date: 16th March 2012
Dear Cliff,
Many thanks for your email and sorry for being a bit slow on email. I seem to have been in the field for almost 7 weeks and it takes its toll on access and energy for emails!
We had a great visit and week in Sagalla with much achieved.
Al Jazeera
I will send the Al Jazeera film to you as soon as I get a copy or a link. They are still unsure of the transmission date as they filmed 3 projects in Kenya during their visit and they won’t show all the Kenyan ones on the same program so it depends which month they show ours. It’s called “Earthrise” and is all about innovative solutions in nature.
Kilele and Ambrose (the farmer) are the stars of the show! They also filmed the Kileva School when Kilele talked about why the school was built for the kids and your Foundation. I hope they keep that in as it was very jolly with us handing out prizes.
Ambrose next to his beehive fence
Honey Care Africa
I had a meeting with Honey Care Africa (HCA) in Nairobi a few weeks prior to the visit and they seemed keen to set up a new honey project around the Taita/Tsavo area so I recommended Sagalla as a possible location. They are a good company as they provide a good fixed price for each kilo of honey that a farmer can make and they bring a truck directly to his farm to help him harvest! If we managed to get more beehives up around Sagalla farms we would need a company like this to train people properly in beekeeping skills and to encourage them to look after the hives as the trucks come around every 4 months or so. They focus entirely on community honey so they are familiar with the logistical challenges of getting around rural farms. They sell shelves and shelves of honey in Nakumatt and Uchumi.
During the visit we met with the operations manager of HCA who is keen to collaborate with the Beehive Fence concept as he is looking for a new site to develop beekeeping as they are trying to source more honey suppliers within Kenya. We are working on ideas for a partnership between Save the Elephants and HCA so that we can raise funds for more beehive fences, this time using Langstroth Hives.
The advantage of working with them is their professionalism on the beekeeping side and their ability to increase hive occupation and honey production. This would be wonderful for the farmers in Sagalla as it’s a totally alternative source of income and fits well with the general incentives about not cutting down trees and getting more from the land. If we can reduce the elephant conflict at the same time, it really could be an exciting project, and perhaps a demonstration site for the whole of Kenya.
Carbon Wildlife Works
The Wildlife Works staff also came to visit and they are the team donating 5 million shillings to 5 communities around the mountain. I believe some of these funds might trickle down to Kileva Eastfield School and they are also going to support bursaries for kids for secondary and tertiary education which is great incentive for the students you are already supporting and working with to work hard!
We are hoping they may have some different pots of money to build some beehive fences with their own funds. The great thing is that this money comes from Carbon Credits from developed countries and it could really help the Sagalla community in many ways, so long as the community keep their vegetation cover in place. It’s a pretty good incentive not to increase charcoal burning.
Kenya Wildlife Service Strategy
We now have beehive fences officially part of the Kenya Wildlife Service elephant management strategy (2012-2021) so the testing of beehive fences has been officially adopted as one method to try in the field. This will greatly help with liaising with wardens and rangers.
Elephant Corrodor
If we manage to build some more beehive fences I will work on a detailed plan so that we can strategise about the best way and places to build them which will include leaving corridors for elephants. We are never going to stop elephants entering the area but if we can cut down the crop-raiding to a bearable amount each year, the community as a whole will have resources to pull themselves out of poverty. There is real potential to introduce some alternative income sources for the communities there that you are working with.
It would be great to make Sagalla the largest beehive fence test area in Kenya. I would also get some help from Save The Elephants to really map the elephant movements so we can try to plan to leave some elephant migration routes open – its a complex area but its a lovely place to work and I do find the community particularly friendly and helpful.
I am also working on some beehive project plans outside of Kenya now as Botswana, CAR and Mozambique are interested. An article came out on 11th Feb on beehive fences being used in Uganda successfully so the idea is definitely spreading.
Best wishes,
Lucy
Dr Lucy King, MSc, DPhil.
Elephants and Bees Project
Save the Elephants
P.O. Box 54667, Nairobi 00200, Kenya
Email1: lucy@savetheelephants.org
Email2: lucyeking99@gmail.com
www.elephantsandbees.com
Kenya cell: 0720 275561
