Community Based Environmental Management Campaign

FOC runs an Energy Saving Demonstration Centre at Talek. Here, FOC promotes the use of a fuel-efficient mud stoves to communities surrounding the Masai Mara. Made out of cow dung and mud, this stove uses a third less wood than the Maasai's traditional method of cooking, meaning that women only need to go out collect wood once a week - not every day.

By using the cookstove, women are not only suffering less from back problems that carrying a large load of wood can cause, but also able to spend more time on income-generating activities such as bee-keeping or bead work.

FOC has recently constructed a 'modern' manyatta at the FOC Centre in Talek. The manyatta includes a fuel-efficient stove, but has also been constructed using less wood. Women's groups are invited up to the centre and are shown how to build the manyatta and the fuel-efficient stoves. FOC has have also recently begun work on producing cow-dung briquettes.

Fuel efficient cook-stove being built

Cow dung briquettes in production

Forestry Programme

In 1998 FOC set up a formal forestry programme, with the aim to address the increasing loss of natural tree cover through education and training and also to raise awareness and expertise on methods of satisfying local fuelwood demands. Every day mothers and children and lodges and camps collect their daily fuelwood needs from the local area. With a national growth rate of 2.8%, in about 15 years the population will double, along with the consumption of trees. The programmes objectives are to:

Provide local people with free formal and outreach training in tree nursery and woodlot skills either for local employment or to set up/improve local businesses.
Encourage camps and lodges within the region to establish woodlots and substitute fueldwood with other energy alternatives.
Encourage and support local people to invest in fuel-efficient stoves and undertake sound environmental practices in their daily lives.
Support local schools to establish seedbeds, tree nurseries and woodlots
Reduce the degrading effects of overuse of forest resources.

Since the start of the programme in 1998 FOC has achieved or facilitated:

Demonstrationa tree nursery and seed-beds at Talek Conservation Centre. Only indigenous species are grown and seedlings are given free to community groups, schools and trading centres.
Woodlots & Nurseries: FOC provides supervision, technical expertise and follow up for the establishment of woodlot projects for community use or enterprise. Currently FOC is supporting 10 woodlot projects and 8 nursery projects in the Mara region. To date FOC has distributed approximately 17,000 indigenous tree seedlings which were grown in FOC demonstration nurseries.
In the past 3 years, 17 local Maasai have received free formal training from FOC in forestry techniques. Three of them have established their own tree nurseries as a source of income and employment and 8 have obtained local employment at camps, schools and FOC Conservation Centres.
This year FOC is building a Forestry Training Centre at Aitong to spread its activities to this predominantly agricultural community.
Seedbank: since 2000, FOC has developed a seed-bank at Talek Centre to collect and sell indigenous seeds. FOC buys seeds from local schools to distribute to community projects therefore assisting two-fold.

Community Woodlot

Seedlings being donated to community members

Training given at a community woodlot

Wildlife Management

The Mara-Serengeti eco-system includes in the Narok-Mara region, eight group ranches, including the three ranches where FOC is active - Naikara, Olderkessi and Siana. The term 'group ranches' represents the land tenure system initiated in 1974 by the government. The three group ranches lie to the east of the Masai Mara National Reserve and cover an area of 350km², 500 km², 1400 km², respectively.

FOC has been active in the Naikara, Olderkessi and Siana since 1988, focusing on the monitoring and protection of a small rhino population. Towards the end of 2001 the programme was expanded to include the monitoring and protection of all endangered animals in the region, not just the rhino. This includes caracal, cheetah, eland, elephant, greater kudu, leopard and painted hunting dog to name but a few.

In addition to monitoring the wildlife population and data collecting the FOC Scouts also encourage community involvement in wildlife conservation through resource materials at the local office, local meetings and a schools programme.

In 2002 a new conservation project was established in the region, managed by the Durrell Institute of Conservation Ecology (DICE), University of Kent. Funded by the Darwin Initiative, DICE is undertaking a human-wildlife interaction/ land-use project in Naikara and Olderkesi.