Elephants regularly trample crops at the Kileva projects in Mwakoma and Kirumbi and throughout the surrounding community. This has brought continued hardship to everyone in the area. That’s why we asked Lucy King and her team from the Save The Elephants (STE) organisation to undertake a study into the feasibility of building two test bee hive fences to:
- help to deter some crop-raiding elephants;
- improve pollination of the crops by bees;
- increase income from the land for the farmers by the sale of honey;
- create a demonstration site for the potential benefit of this type of beehive fence for agricultural development elsewhere in the community.
The feasibility study proved successful, and so, using funds from STE (following a grant from the Disney Worldwide Conservation Fund) together with funds from Kileva, it was agreed that the project should go ahead. Since then fences have been built around two farms and the results have been extremely encouraging.
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The work being done is truly beneficial to the residents of mwakpoma and should be supported by all development conscious people.