Amboseli National Park, formerly Maasai Amboseli Game Reserve, is a national park in Loitoktok District in Kajiado County, Kenya. It is 39,206 ha (392.06 km2) in size at the core of an 8,000 km2 (3,100 sq mi) ecosystem that spreads across the Kenya-Tanzania border. The local people are mainly Maasai, but people from other parts of the country have settled there attracted by the successful tourist-driven economy and intensive agriculture along the system of swamps that makes this low-rainfall area, average 350 mm (14 in), one of the best wildlife-viewing experiences in the world with 400 species of birds including water birds like pelicans, kingfishers, crakes, hamerkop and 47 raptor species.
The Born Free Foundation is an international wildlife charity that campaigns to "Keep Wildlife in the Wild". It protects wild animals in their natural habitat, campaigns against the keeping of wild animals in captivity and rescues wild animals in need. It also promotes compassionate conservation, which takes into account the welfare of individual animals in conservation initiatives. Born Free also creates and provides educational materials and activities that reflect the charity's values.
The Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology (DICE) is a subdivision and research centre of the School of Anthropology and Conservation at the University of Kent, started in 1989 and named in honour of the famous British naturalist Gerald Durrell. It was the first institute in the United Kingdom to award undergraduate and postgraduate degrees and diplomas in the fields of conservation biology, ecotourism, and biodiversity management. It consists of 22 academic staff, being six Professors, seven Readers and nine Lecturers and Senior Lecturers, as well as an advisory board consisting of 14 conservationists from government, business and the NGO sector.
The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) is one of the largest animal welfare and conservation charities in the world. The organization works to rescue individual animals, safeguard populations, preserve habitat, and advocate for greater protections. Brian Davies founded IFAW. IFAW was instrumental in ending the commercial seal hunt in Canada. In 1983 Europe banned all whitecoat harp seals products. This ban helped save over 1 million seals. IFAW operates in over 40 countries.
Environmental issues in Kenya include deforestation, soil erosion, desertification, water shortage and degraded water quality, flooding, poaching, and domestic and industrial pollution.
Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) is a state corporation under the Ministry of Tourism and Wildlife established by an act of Parliament; Wildlife Conservation and Management Act CAP 376, of 1989, now repealed and replaced by the Wildlife Conservation and Management Act, 2013. At independence, the Government of Kenya committed itself to conserving wildlife for posterity with all the means at its disposal, including the places animals lived, forests and water catchment areas.
Dr. Iain Douglas-HamiltonCBE is a Scottish zoologist from Oxford University and one of the world's foremost authorities on the African elephant. Douglas-Hamilton pioneered the first in-depth scientific study of elephant social behaviour in Tanzania's Lake Manyara National Park, aged 23. His work in the 1960s paved the way for much of today’s understanding of elephants and current conservation practices. During the 1970s he investigated the status of elephants throughout Africa and was the first to alert the world to the ivory poaching holocaust, bringing about the first global ivory trade ban in 1989. In 1993, Douglas-Hamilton founded Save the Elephants, which is dedicated to securing a future for elephants and their habitats. For his work on elephants he was awarded two of conservation's highest awards - the Order of the Golden Ark in 1988, the Order of the British Empire in 1992, and the Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in 2015. In 2010, he was named the recipient of the Indianapolis Prize, the world's leading award for animal conservation. In May 2012, Douglas-Hamilton spoke at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Ivory and Insecurity: The Global Implications of Poaching in Africa.
Human–wildlife conflict (HWC) refers to the negative interactions between humans and wild animals, with undesirable consequences both for people and their resources on the one hand, and wildlife and their habitats on the other. HWC, caused by competition for natural resources between human and wildlife, influences human food security and the well-being of both humans and other animals. In many regions, the number of these conflicts has increased in recent decades as a result of human population growth and the transformation of land use.
Cynthia Jane Moss is an American ethologist and conservationist, wildlife researcher, and writer. Her studies have concentrated on the demography, behavior, social organization, and population dynamics of the African elephants of Amboseli. She is the director of the Amboseli Elephant Research Project, and is the program director and trustee for the Amboseli Trust for Elephants (ATE).
Esmond Bradley Martin was an American conservationist who fought for both the preservation of elephants against the illegal ivory trade, and for the rhinoceros against the illegal trade of rhinoceros horns. A trained geographer, Martin was considered a world-renowned expert in the ivory trade and rhinoceros horn trade. He had been a special envoy of the United Nations for the conservation of rhinoceros. Militant for a reduction in the demand for ivory to dry up the market, he participated notably in the stop of rhinoceros horn trade to China in 1993 and ivory in 2017.
The ivory trade is the commercial, often illegal trade in the ivory tusks of the hippopotamus, walrus, narwhal, black and white rhinos, mammoth, and most commonly, African and Asian elephants.
Karura Forest is an urban forest in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya. The forest was gazetted in 1932 and is managed by the Kenya Forest Service in conjunction with the Friends of Karura Forest Community Forest Association.
The International Elephant Foundation (IEF) is a non-profit 501(c)(3) corporation. Formed by individuals and institutions, IEF is dedicated to the conservation of African and Asian elephants worldwide.
The Sheldrick Wildlife Trust (SWT) operates an orphan elephant rescue and wildlife rehabilitation program in Kenya. It was founded in 1977 by Dame Daphne Sheldrick to honor her late husband, David Sheldrick. Since 2001, it has been run by their daughter, Angela Sheldrick.
Jim Justus Nyamu, of Nairobi, Kenya, is an elephant research scientist and activist against poaching and trade in ivory. Nyamu is the executive director at the Elephant Neighbors Center (ENC) and is leader of the movement, Ivory Belongs to Elephants. He has also held positions at the African Conservation Centre and Kenya Wildlife Service. The ENC is a grass-roots collaborative and participatory research organization focused on enhancing the capacity of communities living with wildlife to promote interlinkages between species and their habitats.
The Tsavo Trust is a non-profit wildlife conservation organisation, which covers Tsavo East National Park, Tsavo West National Park, and Chyulu Hills National Park in Kenya. The trust was founded by Nzioki Wa Makau and Richard Moller who is chief executive officer and an experienced bush pilot. The started aim of the trust is the protection of wildlife, especially African elephants, and the reduction of the ivory trade. In June 2014, the Tsavo Trust came into the international spotlight when it announced the death of Kenya's iconic and most well-known elephant, Satao, killed by an ivory poacher with a poisoned arrow.
The destruction of ivory is a technique used by governments and conservation groups to deter the poaching of elephants for their tusks and to suppress the illegal ivory trade. As of 2016, more than 263 tonnes (580,000 lb) of ivory have been destroyed, typically by burning or crushing, in these high-profile events in 21 countries around the world. Kenya held the first event in 1989, as well as the largest event in 2016, when a total of 105 tonnes (231,000 lb) of ivory were incinerated.
Joyce Hatheway Poole is an elephant researcher based at the Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique. Her body of research has led to discoveries about their social and sexual lives and their communicative and cognitive abilities. Her work and research on elephant societies played a central role in the eventual international ban on the trade of ivory. She became the head of the Elephant Program for the Kenya Wildlife Service from 1990 to 1994.
Paula Kahumbu is a wildlife conservationist and chief executive officer of WildlifeDirect. She is best known as a campaigner for elephants and wildlife, spearheading the Hands Off Our Elephants Campaign, which was launched in 2014 with Kenyan First Lady Margaret Kenyatta. She has recently in 2022 been appointed as the first National Geographical Explorer as a board of Trustees member at the National Geographic Society.
