Boomers Abroad

Description

This project brings you to a new Maasai conservancy in south Kenya, part of the wildlife dispersal lands that link the famous Nairobi and Amboseli National Parks and the Maasai Mara. As part of the historic Maasailand ecosystem, local communities continue to depend on livestock for their living. However, drought, increasing human populations and changing land use are taking their toll. This conservancy aims to manage land sustainably harmoniously with wildlife populations. You will be undertaking research on the wildlife populations and the habitats that support them, including Lion, Cheetah, Giraffe and Zebra. You will work directly with the Maasai community on development projects to improve critical socio-economic factors, such as access to water, education and alternative incomes. Learn tracking from the Maasai on the African plains, work towards resolving human wildlife conflict and deliver education and training to Maasai men, women and children, while living and learning amongst them.

For centuries, pastoral Maasailand communities have lived in relative harmony with wildlife, maintaining important migration routes that link Nairobi National Park to Amboseli, Maasai Mara, Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater. Increasing human populations, land use changes and drought now threaten migration routes and with increasing human wildlife conflict, wildlife is in decline with particular concern for the iconic lion. Meanwhile Maasai livestock keeping has become unsustainable and communities suffer from poor access to water, health care and education. Volunteers will contribute to this grass roots community project by undertaking the research necessary to inform and evaluate land management practices, towards sustainable livestock and wildlife levels, helping tackle human wildlife conflict issues; cheetah are the most significant predators. In addition education and training will support the Maasai to meet their challenges of accessing water, health care and education, through alternative incomes such as developing ecotourism.