Earlier this week, my colleague and I visited Ruma National Park, where M-PESA Foundation’s efforts to conserve the endangered Roan Antelope are in high gear. The Foundation is not doing this alone, but in partnership with Kenya Wildlife Service and the Northern Rangelands Trust. Ruma is the only place in Kenya where the Roan Antelope is found, and the fruits of the conservation efforts that kicked off in 2021 are showing through increased numbers.
One of the most successful strategies employed in the conservation exercise is securing the Roan habitat by fencing off a 5 km² sanctuary from the larger Ruma National Park. This excludes predators and limits human encroachment. Other strategies are the construction of water troughs so that antelopes do not have to wander far in search of water, the donation of a vehicle for research purposes, and a mower so that there is a constant supply of freshly sprouted grass for the antelopes in the sanctuary.
M-PESA Foundation has also created local jobs through this initiative, with a team of five people being employed to run daily activities in the Roan Antelope sanctuary.
Communities are part and parcel of the natural resources around them and towards this, M-PESA Foundation has also invested in the people who live near the park through a long-term water project. The hugely impactful project involves renovating an old borehole to increase capacity and installing a bigger solar-powered generator to replace an older fuel-powered one, which often had challenges.
The water is then piped to the people of Nyatoto village, where it has transformed the lives of a people who for decades used to fetch river water miles away. Women would leave home in search of water and only manage to come home in the evening with just one jerry can of not-so-clean water.
Currently, they have enough water for their use, for irrigation farming, and for their livestock as well. Adults and children are healthier with the abundance of vegetables and other subsistence produce all seasons round, and this demonstrates the power of impact perfectly.
According to KWS’s Augustine Ajuoga, M-PESA Foundation’s entry was very timely to conserve the few Roan antelopes left and to uplift neighboring communities since they are also custodians of wildlife.
In return, the community protects the park fiercely, and the people are therefore conservation ambassadors. What happens in communities affects wildlife directly since when they have a sense of ownership of the park and the wildlife, they check against compromising practices like poaching and lighting fires, which could spread to the park.
We met 80-year-old Jennifer Nyakwanda, one of the most vocal conservationists in the area. Aptly nicknamed Mama Park, she knows all too well what the water project means, having lived through the tough decades since 1972. Though elderly now, she has spent her life educating and sensitizing her neighbors about the park. She never tires of reminding them that the animals are part of their blessings, and this way, she has played a significant role in managing human-wildlife conflict.
She is one of nine committee members chaired by Walter Obuya to maintain the water project through minor repairs and prevention of misuse.
“I protect this project because I know the suffering we went through before. Now people can farm, children eat better, and nobody wastes a whole day looking for water.” – Mama Park.
Walter is a farmer and carpenter born and raised in Nyatoto area. He remembered the problems before M-PESA Foundation stepped in and he expressed lots of gratitude. “The old generator broke down a lot. We had to borrow water from the park but now we manage our own. Our job is to stop misuse and fix things like broken taps.”
“We have made ourselves available to the community. They report to us if any wildlife destroys their crops or if they spot stray animals. We also facilitate compensation in case any of the animals damage their property. We constantly reach out to residents and the past two years of the Roan project have been fruitful in getting the community on our side” Source.
