#MountKenyaTrust News Updates

There’s a big difference between ‘tree planting’ and successful forest restoration. MKT has been planting in the Karuri area with the communities and KFS since 2012. The first picture shows stage one – a potato crop, before any tree planting took place. The 2nd picture is planting from about 3 years old. After 6 years, young trees with birds nesting and wildlife returning. At 8 years some species are towering. Monitoring and care after the tree planting stage are key. We’re proud of our team and partners for helping us to genuinely bring back forests. Putting seedlings in the ground is just the start.

In May, 30 year old ‘Adam’- a bull elephant – was safely collared in the Mt Kenya Elephant Corridor. He was last recorded on Lewa Wildlife Conservancy in 2014 and is believed to primarily reside on Mt Kenya. Hopefully the data recorded from the collar will help to show what he’s up to these days.

Our projects are still on the move and we are fully adapting to the new COVID-19 protection measures put in place by the Government of Kenya, for the safety of our staff and everyone they encounter. A few stories and images from the field below:

Enock, Programmes Officer, from our head office checking up on the Imenti Patrol Team, and collecting their monthly patrol data. We collect and analyse this data to improve on our field operations. The data also helps our operations team to determine exactly where we need to allocate resources in our conservation work.

Embu Community Health Volunteers (CHVs) geared with their personal protection equipment carried on with their door-to-door COVID19 prevention campaign in their local communities. Their main agenda has been to encourage people to use masks, maintain social distance when in social places and ensure plenty of hand washing. Gender based violence and teenage pregnancies are on a rise and the CHVs are working closely with the area chiefs.

The number of joint camping mobile patrols with KWS and KFS have increased despite budget restrictions as we are seeing a worrying trend of illegal activities on the rise due to loss of income for many people living close to the forest. Just in May, eight arrests were made by two different patrol teams for logging. Charcoal production is in full force with 49 kilns discovered and over 100 bags ready for transportation. A total of 72 active snares were found set along animal paths.

MKT have been collecting donations from supermarkets to assist families at economic risk during this difficult time. We have been picking up food stuffs and dropping these at the Laikipia County government offices to help in our own way.
Fencing repairs to prevent human-wildlife conflict continues. We’ve replaced a battery for the fence at Kangaita and we’re helping Kenya Wildlife Service to rebuild part of the Burguret fence. In the meantime, fire fighting equipment for the trained teams has been distributed to the relevant bases so we are better prepared for fire outbreaks.

Due to thick forests, direct elephant counting on the mountain is tricky. The most commonly used indirect method to do this is by using dung transects.

Two elephant population surveys have been carried out on the mountain by Dr Hilde Vanleewee from the Wildlife Conservation Society. The same survey design was applied in 2016, then four years later, in early 2020.

Elephant density for Mt Kenya has remained stable and is estimated between 1,419 – 2,558 elephants for the survey area. This is a non-significant reduction of the previous survey, conducted in 2016. Only one very old elephant carcass was foundwith no evidence it would have been poached. Poaching was not encountered as a significant threat. Human- Elephant Conflict around the Imenti has quasi-halted due to the boundary fence and the successful one-way gate, allowing historical migrating elephants from the Northern rangelands to enter the Imenti.

However, the most important results of the 2020 survey are that illegal threats increased by 51%
per cent since 2016. There may well be a link between the larger spread of elephants and larger spread of illegal activities in 2020 (compared to 2016).

Illegal logging multiplied 3.5 fold and livestock numbers increased by 75 per cent. Meat poaching was found to be more spread and in the same areas where logging increased. Elephant distribution was more spread than in the same season in 2016 which may indicate some competition for grazing with livestock. Livestock negatively affects the mountains carrying capacity to sustain its wildlife grazers.