Latest news with #Maasai
The Star
a day ago
- General
- The Star
'Rite of passage': In Kenya, a new generation of Maasai warriors is born
IN the bracing morning cold in the forest highlands overlooking Kenya's Maasailand, 900 teenage boys clad in traditional Maasai shukhas or blankets line up for a cup of hot milk that will sustain them through the day. In spite of the cold, they have been sleeping on the forest floor. They have gone hungry. And they haven't bathed in a month. It's all part of learning to be a Maasai warrior. They have travelled to Olaimutiai in Kenya's Narok county from all over the Maasai ancestral lands in southern Kenya and northern Tanzania. All 900 were handpicked to take part in a Maasai warrior training camp, which only happens every 10 to 15 years. It teaches Maasai cultural values, leadership skills – and how to be tough. Maasai children line up during the Enkipaata ceremony. Isaac Mpusia, a 16-year-old high schooler, was visited at home last March by a group of boys who asked for and were offered hospitality, and stayed overnight. The next day, they told him to leave with them. 'They didn't tell me (where we were going) and I was worried at first,' he says. But he understood the honour of having been chosen, and went. 'When you come here, you learn a lot of things that were done by our parents,' Mpusia says. 'You have to have discipline.' Traditionally, transitioning from child to warrior as a Maasai involved taking part in a one-year warrior camp. Maasai youths would be secluded and learn survival skills, bushcraft – and, if the opportunity arose, how to kill a lion. All that has changed. Although 'Enkipaata' – the official rite of passage that includes warrior training – has been declared a Unesco Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding, it has been modernised. Men of the Maasai tribe perform traditional dance, during a Maasai male rite of passage. Training leaders The boys now wield long sticks, not blades. No lions are killed. And warrior camp has been condensed down to one month, timed to coincide with school holidays. Joyce Naingisa's son is taking part in this Enkipaata, and although she is just 34 years old, this ritual has already changed considerably in her lifetime. 'My husband dropped out of school for a whole year so that he could attend,' she says. 'But now, they are the leaders, and they know the importance of education. So these boys will undergo this rite of passage, but we still make sure that they go to school.' Naingisa is a county minister in Narok North County and took a month off work to be here. One of her traditional responsibilities as a Maasai wife and mother is to help build the homes that make up this temporary settlement. 'We just came to a plain field here, and now you can see a full house. That is the role of women: to build the shelter,' she explains. Having all 900 recruits come with their families would be logistically impossible, so Naingisa feels responsible for all of them. 'The children are brought here from across Kenya and Tanzania, so we are their mothers. They can enter any house. They can all eat. There is no difference between my son, whose mother is here, and the one whose mother is not here.' On the day of their graduation, a ceremonial bull is slaughtered and blessed by the elders, before being shared by everyone. Children of the Maasai tribe paint their hair with the traditional red ochre pigment, during the ceremony. Community spirit Stanley Naingisa – Joyce's husband and chief of his own age set – explains the importance of the meat-sharing ceremony. 'It teaches them sharing,' he says. 'It teaches them brotherhood. It teaches them being bound together as a community and as a people. 'For the Maasai, when you say that somebody is of your age set, these are people that have grown with you, and that you are going to grow old with.' This new generation of Maasai leaders faces unique challenges. Kenya's 1.2 million Maasai people are profoundly affected both by climate change and the shrinking of the grazing land available to them, both because of urbanisation and agricultural expansion. 'These children will be change-makers,' says Mosinte Nkoitiko, a 46-year-old cultural chief who travelled here from Tanzania. 'That's the message that we want to send to them. They are the ones facing these challenges, and we want them to know that they are not alone.' When this temporary settlement was built for the warrior camp, they also planted 150 seeds and 50 seedlings: trees that they hope will grow with their children. 'The trees have been blessed by their fathers and grand- fathers, so that they can now have children,' says Joyce Naingisa. 'They are starting a new generation.' At the graduation ceremony, this new generation was officially given the name 'Iltaretu'. It will include the thousands of boys of the same age who weren't able to come here in person, but were represented by the 900 boys who were. 'When we meet in future, we shall know each other,' says Isaac Mpusia. 'Because we come from the same age group.' – AP
Leader Live
2 days ago
- General
- Leader Live
Chester Zoo welcomes two bat-eared fox sisters to facility
The two sisters, named Maasai and Malindi, have been welcomed by the zoo's conservationists after travelling more than 500 miles from a zoo in Paris, France. First images show the pair exploring their home at Chester, located in the zoo's new Heart of Africa habitat – the largest zoo development ever undertaken in the UK, spanning more than 22.5 acres in size. The species is named after its distinctive oversized ears and is endemic to the open savannahs and arid grasslands of eastern and southern Africa. In the wild, bat-eared foxes face increasing threats, largely due to habitat loss caused by agriculture, human encroachment and hunting. Zoo experts say that, in future, they plan to introduce one of sisters to a male fox and go on to play a vital role in the conservation breeding programme that is working to safeguard the species. Chester Zoo David White, team manager at Chester Zoo, said: 'It's incredibly exciting to welcome bat-eared foxes back to Chester Zoo after a 30-year hiatus and they're a wonderful addition to our new Heart of Africa habitat. 'They're a truly unique and fascinating species with some amazing adaptations. 'Their enormous ears aren't just for show – they act like satellite dishes and help the foxes detect the tiniest of movements coming from insects beneath the ground, allowing them to detect prey with pinpoint accuracy. 'They're so sensitive that they can even hear termites chewing underground.' David added that Maasai and Malindi are settling in well so far, with new housemates – a family of 12 Cape porcupines. He added: 'These two species would often come across one another in the wild, so we've recreated this right here at Chester. 'In time, we hope to introduce one of the two sisters to a male fox, with the hope that we can contribute to the European conservation breeding programme – helping to ensure there's a healthy, genetically diverse back-up population in human care. 'Like many species found in the African savannah, bat-eared foxes are under threat as their habitat becomes more fragmented as a result of human activity. MOST VIEWED 'That's why our teams are on the ground in several national parks across Kenya and Uganda safeguarding some of the continent's rarest species like northern giraffe, giant pangolins, mountain bongo and Eastern black rhino. 'By protecting these species and their habitats we're also helping many of Africa's little known species like bat-eared foxes, that share the same habitats, to go on to thrive once again.' The zoo has long been at the forefront of protecting African wildlife, from supporting the safe translocation of northern giraffes to protected national parks in Uganda, to developing cutting-edge AI trail cameras to protect giant pangolins from illegal trafficking.
Daily Maverick
4 days ago
- General
- Daily Maverick
From gourds to satellites: A Maasai-inspired model for reweaving Kenya's rangelands
How an 'inside-out' conservation strategy is integrating traditional pastoralist practices with modern conservation tools to sustain biodiversity across working landscapes. Jonah Western's world is at its most abundant when it dances what he calls 'a lazy, ecological minuet'. Western is a Kenyan conservationist who has spent his life wrestling with the interplay between people and animals on the savannas that used to be under the sway of the Maasai, and who is attempting an ambitious retrofit of a dwindling landscape to meet expanding needs. The minuet is a dance of decorum and harmony, and to illustrate how it's performed on the veld, Western reaches for a Maasai saying, that 'elephants create grasslands and cattle create bushlands'. And as each moves forward and back, they 'create this tapestry of habitats which maintain diversity'. But he's quick to acknowledge that the dance floor is not as level or expansive as it should be. One of the main reasons is that what used to be communal land in the south of Kenya has been fragmented, privatised and degraded. The ways of the Maasai, pastoralists 'who maintained the best grasslands in the world' with high animal populations, were disrupted by British colonial strictures, farming, post-colonial landgrabs and sell-offs, and by nature conservation shaped by national parks. Western, who will be speaking at the 14th Oppenheimer Research Conference later this year, says that 'national parks are vital for protecting wildlife, but are far too small to conserve large mammals and biodiversity'. Moreover, they 'have also taken over community lands once shared with wildlife and offered few conservation benefits'. 'I saw the first parks coming into being, and it created enemies at the gate. So you couldn't work with the communities, and the communities said, 'to hell with it, bring in the poachers because the wildlife is of no use to us any more'.' To overcome this legacy, Western has been pioneering a new, quietly radical 'inside-out' approach at Amboseli National Park. It is Kenya's second most popular, and arguably most photogenic, national park after the Maasai Mara national reserve, but its area of 392km² means it forms only a tiny, although significant, part of a much larger ecosystem that encompasses the Amboseli Basin. Famous for its elephants, it lies in the rainshadow of Mt Kilimanjaro, across the border in Tanzania, and between the Chyulu Hills and Tsavo West national parks, names given historic resonance by Ernest Hemingway and human-eating lions. Beyond this large protected area stretch communal ranches, where Maasai communities live and herd their cattle. Western's 'inside-out' conservation strategy is a community-centred one that integrates traditional pastoralist practices with modern conservation tools to sustain biodiversity across working landscapes. It requires a thorough understanding of pastoral tradition, the potential of technology, and the role of conservation in saving the world from the dystopian threat of global warming. And, because living systems are at the heart of the initiative, it means recognising that technology offers a partial solution, but that the governance of socioeconomic, political and property systems is crucial to success. Traditional Maasai pastoralism has long been guided by the 'green wave', or the 'green flush', the rippling growth of fresh grass across the landscape. This natural cycle is vital for sustainable grazing, and Maasai herders have traditionally measured it through milk yields and scouting by young warriors. 'What we do,' says Western, 'which is very different from anybody else in measuring rangelands, is to measure the grazing pressure on the grasses. We're not taking the condition of the animal to say what the outlook is. We're taking how much grass is left and the rate at which that's being taken down. 'Green wave' 'The reason we do that is that in traditional Maasai culture they move around the landscape and they follow what we now call the green wave, and they have two ways of measuring it. First of all, milk yield, which is much more sensitive than body condition (of cattle). The gourd is the measure of that. Every single evening, the woman is milking the cow, and it's going into the gourd. And she's saying to the herders, 'What on earth did you do today that the milk yield has gone down?' It's that sensitive. Or she says, 'What did you do today that there's such a good milk yield?' And it's not just the milk yield itself. It's also the quality of the milk, which responds to the specific grass they're eating.' In addition to this is the role of young men, or community scouts, called 'ele'enore', who gather the information the community needs to weigh its options. They are 'warriors who don't yet have their cattle, who go all over the rangelands looking at what conditions are, where the water is, what the diseases are, what wildlife there is, and they bring it back to the elders. And these are the grazing committees. They sit under a tree, traditionally, and assess all the conditions of the rangelands, and what people have in livestock, and then they agree on where they're going to move, when and under what conditions: where they will water, procedures for taking cattle to water, who governs the cattle when they go to water, and so on. 'Over the last 50 to 60 years, what we've established very well in Amboseli is a robust monitoring scheme where we can monitor the grasslands, the habitats, every single species of plant and animal, numbers and distribution. That is mainly done through local resource assessors, and it's very people intensive.' For this, 'we used knitting needles held in an A-frame to measure grass hits' , says Western. 'A slanting pin frame which tells us not only how much grass there is, but the grazing pressure and the greenness of grass. That allows us to get in advance of where people are moving and seeing how quickly the grass is being taken down by wildlife, not just livestock, because don't forget they're competing with wildlife. That gives us the early warning system, which is very sensitive. 'So at the beginning of every single dry season, we have a meeting which says, this is the condition of the rangeland, this is your milk yield, these are your market prices for livestock, and this is the outlook from the grasslands.' That's where the technology comes into it, 'where we go from the knitting needle to the satellite, which is 300km up'. Satellite imagery uses spectral bands to assess the health and density of vegetation to calculate a Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). 'The signature of NDVI goes blank in the late dry season when you've got no more green grass left,' says Western, 'so we integrate what's on the ground and what we're getting from the satellite imagery.' Rich database And 'instead of scribbling down on bits of paper, which I used to do and using a hand cranked calculator to do all the numbers, every single resource assessor in the field has a computer pad, and he enters the data directly into that pad. It goes through cyberspace. And in Nairobi there's a team who have built up an incredibly rich database, and you can go into any variable you want: grass condition, milk yields, and look at what it's like in one location and how it scales up. 'And AI is making that even easier. To interrogate data and to scale up is a devil's own job. But AI, so long as you use it in a thoughtful way, is doing so much of the work that was taking us days and weeks. Now we're able to get that information back into the communities very quickly, but we can also give them visual images of what every single area looks like. 'Every time they measure a plot, they also do a 360 of the vegetation. What the community then has is a visual sense of what's over the horizon. And we're now trying to scale that up for the whole of the southern region of Kenya all the way from the coast to Lake Victoria. The other thing we're doing is animating it. We've got wildlife numbers and distributions and now we're animating them and you can see where they're moving around the space, and you can overlay them on the green waves.' Stitching together data and images is one thing. Land governance is another, but it too has been evolving. Grazing committees are being reestablished to help coordinate land use among private owners, forming landowner associations that enforce agreed-upon grazing practices, says Western. In Amboseli, a spatial land-use plan now designates areas for agriculture, livestock, and conservation, balancing economic needs with ecological health. 'Formerly,' explains Western, 'a person, in order to be successful as a herder, not only had to know how to manage his livestock, he had to have a social network, which allowed him to move across the country up to 100km away. If he didn't have those social networks, he wouldn't be able to move through all those social barriers. Having that network is really the basis of reciprocity among the Maasai. 'Knowing that to build up my livestock, it's not just about large numbers. They'll die in a drought, so they are dissipated among friends, members and age mates. That's spreading the risk. But where that's breaking down is in the break-up of land itself, moving from communal land then to group branches, which are giving titles to members. And now it's breaking down into individual holdings, of 23 acres where previously you moved over 3,000-4,000km². 'What we're trying to do, is to re-establish the grazing committees and say that it's in everyone's interest as individual landowners now to agree to a new form of governance. And this new form of governance brings together all the individual landowners to a landowner association, and counteracts what I call 'the tyranny of small decisions'. It's sort of halfway between the traditional system that worked on communal land and the new dispensation, which is individual private lands, but still with the same thing that's driving it: the ecology of scale, the ability to move with the green wave to get the productivity, on the one hand, and to move into those areas which make you resilient to drought on the other.' Agriculture and tourism Part of the success of the approach has been to look beyond just cattle. Agriculture and tourism are incorporated into the goals of the broad ecosystem initiatives. ''We're milking our second cattle through tourists' is how it's viewed,' says Western. 'It's bringing in the revenue, and that puts kids in school and gives hope for the future. There's a realisation of how to manage multiple income streams. There's a herder income stream, and tourism is another income stream.' This diversification has been a priority within Amboseli itself and has an added element. 'There are parts of Amboseli which are swamps,' says Western. 'Those have gone under irrigated agriculture, and now every single member of the pastoral community is given land for agriculture as well. So that means they have an income coming in from agriculture. They've divided their land up spatially into areas of agriculture, areas for pastoralism and wildlife. Every member is entitled to two or three acres of what is essentially irrigated land. Over time, the rising human population has totally overwhelmed the subsistence economy, and that means they've had to diversify into agriculture.' How has biodiversity fared through the various tribulations of the past 50 years? 'At Amboseli, it's definitely gone down,' says Western. 'That's because we had the compression of elephants during the poaching days of the 1970s, which as in South Africa knocked out the woodlands, the woody vegetation. We've lost a large part of the woody species diversity, both in plants and also in animals, whether that's primates, bushbuck, woodpeckers; we've really lost diversity.' However, 'that diversity has not been lost outside, because the elephants have abandoned the areas which they had before, which means that those thickets have come back. 'What we're trying to do now is win that space back for elephants to move outside. I did a count last week in Amboseli. I count elephants every month. There are only 140 inside the park out of a population of 2,000. Because they've grazed it down so much, they're having to redisperse. 'But within the park we have two to three times more wildlife than what I counted in the 1960s,' something that is evident from the picturesque photographs that entice tourists from around the world. 'We've got more zebra, more wildebeest, more hippo and all the grazing species. But the browsers have gone down.' This underscores for Western the importance of open spaces, mobility, and communal resource management in maintaining ecological balance and a sustainable coexistence between humans and wildlife. As his 'inside-out' approach to conservation gains traction, so the seasonal hymn of renewal that sounds across the savanna is swelling, and Western can hear the minuet's rhythm drawing people, animals and the land into a new tapestry of hope. DM Jonah Western is founder and chairman of the African Conservation Centre, a former director of Wildlife Conservation Society's International Program, and has been director of the Amboseli Conservation Programme since 1967. He is a former director of Kenya Wildlife Service and chairman of the Wildlife Clubs of Kenya, and IUCN's African Elephant and Rhino Specialist Groups. He is the author of: Conservation for the Twenty-first Century; In the Dust of Kilimanjaro, The Future of the Open Rangelands: An exchange of ideas between East Africa and the American Southwest, and We Alone: How Humans Have Conquered the Planet and Can Also Save It.
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
How Maasai culture coexists with safari in southern Kenya
This article was produced by National Geographic Traveller (UK). 'Simba!' The urgent whisper — 'lion' in Swahili — comes from Julius Naurori as he stands bolt upright in the back of our 4WD like a human antenna. Immediately, our guide in the front slows the car to a cautious prowl and a hush descends, save for the tinkling silver discs tied to Julius's waist as they sway in time with the rocking of the car. The dawn sky is still blushing crimson, and at first it's hard to see what's almost directly in front of us: four sleeping lions, their chocolate manes camouflaged as they lie on their sides in long, unruly grass marking the banks of the Mara River. Our guide is Roca River Camp co-owner Ross Withey, and Julius, our wildlife-spotter, is his wingman on this safari drive in the Maasai Mara National Reserve. Julius is a man of few words, but he can read the savannah's undulating plains and its complex ecosystems like the creases of his hands. 'The hippos are not going to be lucky tonight,' he says, remarking on the lions' lean bellies as we watch their rib cages rise and fall. We are totally alone, save for the haunting cry of a tropical boubou hidden in the riverine tree branches. Like most wildlife-spotters in the Mara, Julius is Maasai. He comes from a long line of nomadic pastoralists who have driven cattle across southern Kenya and northern Tanzania's Serengeti for centuries. It's the same corridor used by wildebeest during the annual Great Migration, with both cattle and wildlife following the pastures and water. This natural event has made the Mara one of Africa's most popular safari destinations, yet for young spotters like Julius, it's also home. Keeping a constant eye out for big cats comes with the territory. It's been less than 24 hours since I landed in the Maasai Mara, and this famous park is already challenging my preconceived ideas of what it means for a place to be wild. I'd expected it to be virtually uninhabited, but it's far from it. On the flight in from Nairobi, there were vast, undeveloped clay-coloured plains and deeply gouged escarpments like sculptures. And in between the land's natural contours, I'd spotted distinct man-made circles — small Maasai villages protected by traditional fencing systems called bomas, where farmers eke out a living. Interspersed with herds of antelopes, there had been cows. Almost half of Kenya's healthy population of lions stalks the Maasai Mara. It's hard to imagine a world where these large predators can coexist with villages hosting livestock farmers and their cattle, but the four now in front of me certainly aren't fazed by human presence. Eventually, one lazily lifts his head and fixes his eyes on us, and our driver restarts the car to move on. A few minutes later, we pull into Roca River Camp — a line of 10 comfortable canvas tents dotted among persimmon trees on a raised bank facing the Mara River inside the reserve. Behind the tents, a halo effect is forming on the never-ending plains of grass that stretch away from the river, the rising sun burnishing each strand an ethereal gold. I'm on a tour of southern Kenya designed by Explorations Company, an Africa veteran with close ties to the conservation-led African Wildlife Foundation. The operator has spent 30 years scoping out small camps like this one that can offer the most intimate wildlife experiences while educating guests about local conservation efforts. Roca is family-run by Kenyans Caro and Ross Withey; it was Caro's dad, Willie Roberts, who established the first wildlife conservancy on public land in Kenya in the 1980s. Today, sitting alongside national parks and reserves, there are 170 conservancies across the country, covering almost 6.5 million hectares — 11% of Kenya's landmass. In the Maasai Mara, the model gives the traditional Maasai landowners a rental fee from the lodges and a nightly fee for every guest, creating a compelling reason to live harmoniously with the wildlife rather than prey on it. 'Here in the Mara, people are no longer killing predators for fun — they only kill them for protection,' explains Dominic Sakat, a community outreach officer from the Mara Predator Project who joins us for lunch later that day. The initiative was launched by the Kenya Wildlife Trust in 2013, at a time when Maasai warriors were still hunting lions as a traditional rite of passage. While this practice has now been all but stamped out and poaching is down, too, Dominic explains that lions are still under threat from farmers trying to protect their highly prized livestock. We're sitting at a long, communal table in front of the camp while a muscular, tusked warthog ferrets in the grasses behind us and two hippos slosh around in the river below. But Dominic, wearing a sand-coloured safari shirt and sunglasses balanced on his head, only has eyes for the big cats. His job is to work with Mara communities to assess and monitor threats to the area's major predators, which include elusive leopards and a small, fragile population of cheetahs, as well as lions. Having grown up in a local Maasai village, Dominic has seen first-hand that one of the greatest challenges the animals now face is human population growth. It's estimated that more than 70% of Kenya's wildlife lives outside of protected reserve areas and national parks, and human-wildlife conflict is increasing. The Maasai farmers and wildlife are crossing paths more frequently and local villages are encroaching further into wildlife terrain. 'In the Mara, the human population doubles every nine years,' he says. 'And if you drive around, you'll see there are no barriers between wildlife and communities.' Conservation, therefore, is more important than ever in this region. This fenceless existence gives me pause for thought again when we drive out for sunset at one of the Mara River's famous crossings. Some half a million wildebeest — and countless safari 4WDs — pass here during the annual Great Migration. Out of season, there's nobody here but us and a vast pod of hippos wallowing in the water at our feet. How fast can a hippo run, I wonder, as I stand at the water's edge watching theatrical yawns reveal giant fangs. 'Faster than you'd imagine,' says camp manager Philip McLellan as he pours a round of drinks. Their sonorous grunts erupt like a loud conversation, masking the sound of the ice clinking in our gin and tonics. 'I have a saying that one of them farts and the others all laugh,' he adds with a wry smile. Flying over Lake Magadi on the borders of Kenya and Tanzania the following day is like a vision from Dante's hell. 'You definitely don't want to swim in it. It would burn your skin off,' says our co-pilot Aaron D'Cruz through his headset as we bank down low for a closer look at the lake's potent soda ash crust in our 12-seater propeller plane. We're on our way to Shompole, a safari region southeast of the Mara that's far less known. Explorations Company anticipates it's on the cusp of finally getting the attention it deserves, thanks to the opening of a luxury lodge from high-profile safari operator Great Plains in 2026, but we're headed for another small, family-run camp called Shompole Wilderness. Below us, the lake's mottled surface creates beautiful, rippling veins that look like stilton. The soda ash is one of the area's biggest exports, but the nutrients also make the area a prolific breeding ground for flamingos and pelicans, which draws bird enthusiasts. Before long, the plane is surrounded by flamingos. Some fly straight past my window; others appear to float below our metal wings, like dozens of pink arrows soaring towards invisible targets. From up here, I can see the same circular village bomas I'd seen flying over the Mara, but the landscape is much more arid — the earth cracked like a dry heel, small whirlwinds called dust devils spinning around lonely acacia trees. 'What makes Shompole so special is that the river flowing from the escarpment provides a green area and swamp — that's why all the wildlife comes here during the dry season,' says Aaron. Sure enough, as we land, I see an eruption of greenery in the parched expanse below. The river in question is the Ewaso Ng'iro, and it's right in front of my base for the next two nights, which is run by Kenyans Sam and Johann du Toit. There are just six wood-hewn guest rooms built by Johann, rooted among the riverbank foliage, with a small pool, a bird hide and a large, communal, open-sided lounge with steps down to the river. Like Roca, this camp has close ties to the Maasai and conservation initiatives. It recruits from local communities and invests in training, while Sam is the right-hand woman of Maasai conservation leader John Kamanga. Winner of the 2020 Tusk Award for Conservation in Africa, John is a passionate advocate for fence-free landscapes and has dedicated his career to finding a way for pastoralists and wildlife to coexist in the South Rift landscape. He's the co-founder of SORALO (South Rift Association of Land Owners), a community-based organisation for which Sam acts as consultant. It employs 147 Maasai rangers who patrol an area half the size of Belgium. 'Because of their work, the camp can exist,' Sam tells me as she shows me around, her loose-fitting cotton trousers smudged with traces of earth, beaded Maasai anklets above her trainers. It's noticeably hotter here than in the Mara. Outside my room, I find a resident troop of baboons cooling off by jumping gleefully into the fudge-coloured water, their bare bums slapping on the surface with an almighty crash. Before long, the water calls me in, too — it's rare to find a river like this one in southern Kenya without crocodiles and hippos, and one of the lodge's specialities is river tubing and kayaking. The baboons scarper as my group, including the owners' kids and their dog, scramble into fat tyre rings and take off into the slow, tepid flow. It's a welcome change of pace from the 4WD and a fresh perspective on the shoreline. The fig trees framing the bank rustle with vervet monkeys, and I can pick out the faint imprint of a path along the bank closest to my room, which is used as an elephant corridor. The absence of other guests makes the setting feel almost primeval; there are no sounds save for the languid flow of water and occasional chatter of the kids. Later that day, I head out again in the 4WD. This time it's with Johann, a broad-shouldered man with a booming voice and wicked sense of humour. We're en route to spend the night at his passion project — a solar-powered photography hide around a watering hole, three miles from camp. Also in the car is Richard 'Maren' Merenkoi — a 24-year-old Maasai man robed in a traditional red shuka (a cloth garment and a symbol of the Maasai's resilience), whose face lights up when he smiles. He began his career at Shompole Wilderness five years ago, initially in room service. 'The animals make this place,' he says as we pass a dazzle of zebras nibbling among a thatch of thorny acacia bushes, kicking up earth the colour of lion's fur. 'It's our pride to have them; in the conservancy, people, livestock and wildlife — we all live together.' This understanding, that animal protection is far more powerful than poaching or hunting, has become more common in the conservancy zones in the past decade thanks to efforts by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to engage the local communities that live within them. 'When I was a kid, an NGO came to my school to talk about the benefits of conservation. One day, I'd like to do the same,' Maren tells me. Next year, the camp will help pay to put him through his guide training so he can get qualified. It's just before dusk when we arrive at the hide — a half-sunken metal container with grass walls that have been scorched by the sun. 'We knew the area wasn't a good grazing zone, so the Maasai wouldn't mind if we set up here,' says Johann as he navigates the water's edge, checking lighting hook-ups haven't been chewed by baboons, then wades in to clean the pool's surface to maximise its mirrored reflection. Once the location had been approved by the local communities, he employed local Maasai to help dig the 52.5-foot pool and the channels for the piping that comes from the river to fill it. It doesn't look like much from the back, but Johann tells me that since it was completed three years ago, it's been attracting photographers from all over the world. Its USP is the specialist lighting, with front and side hook-ups, plus 59 feet of backlighting, all on dimmer switches to create atmosphere and ensure animals don't get blinded or disturbed. 'I wanted to get it right,' he tells me. 'But I also wanted to make the hide accessible for people with smartphone cameras.' Bookings at Shompole Wilderness are starting to soar, because of it. 'The hide has changed our whole business.' With glasses of Chardonnay poured and chicken curry served in tiffin boxes, we settle in on a row of directors' chairs inside. It isn't long before four stocky warthogs arrive, one trotting straight into the water and plonking himself down, a puff of dust rising from his belly. Through the glassless windows, we have an eye-level view, backdropped by the hulk of Mt Shompole rearing in the distance. The framing is so perfect it looks like a CGI film set. As darkness creeps in and Maren and Johann start playing with the lighting's dimmer switches, a giraffe lollops by, splaying its legs comically to get low enough to drink. The procession of animals continues long into the night. Elephants come within a hair's breadth of my seat, spraying water in broad arcs that glitter like falling stars as they catch the backlights. Finally we get a succession of lions. Although they can't see us in the hide, they keep their eyes firmly fixed on our position on the far side of the pond as four of them drink in a row. They're so close, I can hear them lapping. While Johann is in the process of building another hide, Sam is working with SORALO to trial a new tour for guests of Shompole Wilderness, in partnership with the organisation's Ilaaretok programme. The express purpose of the Ilaaretok initiative is to reduce human-wildlife conflict by employing members of the local Maasai villages as extra pairs of eyes and hands — community guardians, if you will. In the Maasai language, the word ilaaretok means 'helpers'. The following day, I set out to join them in one of their roles: getting cattle home and unharmed each night by accompanying farmers on the walk back to their villages. I hear the clang of cowbells tumbling over the plains before we reach the 70-strong herd, and the dozen or so Maasai men driving them forward. The Ilaaretok's role is one of deterrent, keeping watch and trying to prevent possible wildlife conflict scenarios. Unlike rangers, they don't carry guns; some choose to wield the traditional Maasai spear instead. Alongside daily cattle watches, they raise the alarm when lion pawprints are spotted, transport injured cows for veterinary care and track lost livestock to bring it back to farmers. It seems odd to be out on foot in lion country, but also wonderfully freeing. Knives at their waists, rigid bead necklaces ringing their throats, decorative belts hung loose, the farmers and their Ilaaretok companions walk in a banded line. 'The Ilaaretok are the first people out in the landscape in the morning and last at night,' says Joshua Lesikar Parsaloi, the stocky group supervisor, as we walk slowly together across the plains, the hot embers of the day still warming the earth beneath our boots. Dressed head to toe in desert-storm beige, he explains that every six months, the team of patrollers rotates, to help spread the employment opportunity among the local communities. It's an in-demand job, as the role requires fewer qualifications or experience than is needed to become a ranger. Launched three years ago, the programme has been hailed a great success and now employs 72 people in eight groups, two of which operate in Shompole. Joshua pauses to point out a pair of hoof prints stamped into the dust at our feet. 'This one is a gazelle, this one is a cow,' he says, highlighting how closely the land is shared between wildlife and livestock. The sun is starting to wane, sucking the heat out of the sky. Knowing from my night in the hide how many lions roam this area at night, I suddenly wonder if maybe we're being watched. I ask if there could be cause for concern, us strolling across Shompole in the footsteps of these great predators. But Joshua just chuckles. For the Maasai, the wildlife is a simple fact of life. 'It's not easy to attack a cow in an open area like this — they're afraid of us.' And besides, he says, 'a lion is very friendly compared to a buffalo'. He looks back at me as we walk on, passing a clump of acacia from which a couple of herders are trying to coax some goats, and adds with a matter-of-fact shrug: 'The buffalo will wait for you behind a bush.' Published in the June 2025 issue of National Geographic Traveller (UK).To subscribe to National Geographic Traveller (UK) magazine click here. (Available in select countries only).
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How Maasai culture coexists with safari in southern Kenya
This article was produced by National Geographic Traveller (UK). 'Simba!' The urgent whisper — 'lion' in Swahili — comes from Julius Naurori as he stands bolt upright in the back of our 4WD like a human antenna. Immediately, our guide in the front slows the car to a cautious prowl and a hush descends, save for the tinkling silver discs tied to Julius's waist as they sway in time with the rocking of the car. The dawn sky is still blushing crimson, and at first it's hard to see what's almost directly in front of us: four sleeping lions, their chocolate manes camouflaged as they lie on their sides in long, unruly grass marking the banks of the Mara River. Our guide is Roca River Camp co-owner Ross Withey, and Julius, our wildlife-spotter, is his wingman on this safari drive in the Maasai Mara National Reserve. Julius is a man of few words, but he can read the savannah's undulating plains and its complex ecosystems like the creases of his hands. 'The hippos are not going to be lucky tonight,' he says, remarking on the lions' lean bellies as we watch their rib cages rise and fall. We are totally alone, save for the haunting cry of a tropical boubou hidden in the riverine tree branches. Like most wildlife-spotters in the Mara, Julius is Maasai. He comes from a long line of nomadic pastoralists who have driven cattle across southern Kenya and northern Tanzania's Serengeti for centuries. It's the same corridor used by wildebeest during the annual Great Migration, with both cattle and wildlife following the pastures and water. This natural event has made the Mara one of Africa's most popular safari destinations, yet for young spotters like Julius, it's also home. Keeping a constant eye out for big cats comes with the territory. It's been less than 24 hours since I landed in the Maasai Mara, and this famous park is already challenging my preconceived ideas of what it means for a place to be wild. I'd expected it to be virtually uninhabited, but it's far from it. On the flight in from Nairobi, there were vast, undeveloped clay-coloured plains and deeply gouged escarpments like sculptures. And in between the land's natural contours, I'd spotted distinct man-made circles — small Maasai villages protected by traditional fencing systems called bomas, where farmers eke out a living. Interspersed with herds of antelopes, there had been cows. Almost half of Kenya's healthy population of lions stalks the Maasai Mara. It's hard to imagine a world where these large predators can coexist with villages hosting livestock farmers and their cattle, but the four now in front of me certainly aren't fazed by human presence. Eventually, one lazily lifts his head and fixes his eyes on us, and our driver restarts the car to move on. A few minutes later, we pull into Roca River Camp — a line of 10 comfortable canvas tents dotted among persimmon trees on a raised bank facing the Mara River inside the reserve. Behind the tents, a halo effect is forming on the never-ending plains of grass that stretch away from the river, the rising sun burnishing each strand an ethereal gold. I'm on a tour of southern Kenya designed by Explorations Company, an Africa veteran with close ties to the conservation-led African Wildlife Foundation. The operator has spent 30 years scoping out small camps like this one that can offer the most intimate wildlife experiences while educating guests about local conservation efforts. Roca is family-run by Kenyans Caro and Ross Withey; it was Caro's dad, Willie Roberts, who established the first wildlife conservancy on public land in Kenya in the 1980s. Today, sitting alongside national parks and reserves, there are 170 conservancies across the country, covering almost 6.5 million hectares — 11% of Kenya's landmass. In the Maasai Mara, the model gives the traditional Maasai landowners a rental fee from the lodges and a nightly fee for every guest, creating a compelling reason to live harmoniously with the wildlife rather than prey on it. 'Here in the Mara, people are no longer killing predators for fun — they only kill them for protection,' explains Dominic Sakat, a community outreach officer from the Mara Predator Project who joins us for lunch later that day. The initiative was launched by the Kenya Wildlife Trust in 2013, at a time when Maasai warriors were still hunting lions as a traditional rite of passage. While this practice has now been all but stamped out and poaching is down, too, Dominic explains that lions are still under threat from farmers trying to protect their highly prized livestock. We're sitting at a long, communal table in front of the camp while a muscular, tusked warthog ferrets in the grasses behind us and two hippos slosh around in the river below. But Dominic, wearing a sand-coloured safari shirt and sunglasses balanced on his head, only has eyes for the big cats. His job is to work with Mara communities to assess and monitor threats to the area's major predators, which include elusive leopards and a small, fragile population of cheetahs, as well as lions. Having grown up in a local Maasai village, Dominic has seen first-hand that one of the greatest challenges the animals now face is human population growth. It's estimated that more than 70% of Kenya's wildlife lives outside of protected reserve areas and national parks, and human-wildlife conflict is increasing. The Maasai farmers and wildlife are crossing paths more frequently and local villages are encroaching further into wildlife terrain. 'In the Mara, the human population doubles every nine years,' he says. 'And if you drive around, you'll see there are no barriers between wildlife and communities.' Conservation, therefore, is more important than ever in this region. This fenceless existence gives me pause for thought again when we drive out for sunset at one of the Mara River's famous crossings. Some half a million wildebeest — and countless safari 4WDs — pass here during the annual Great Migration. Out of season, there's nobody here but us and a vast pod of hippos wallowing in the water at our feet. How fast can a hippo run, I wonder, as I stand at the water's edge watching theatrical yawns reveal giant fangs. 'Faster than you'd imagine,' says camp manager Philip McLellan as he pours a round of drinks. Their sonorous grunts erupt like a loud conversation, masking the sound of the ice clinking in our gin and tonics. 'I have a saying that one of them farts and the others all laugh,' he adds with a wry smile. Flying over Lake Magadi on the borders of Kenya and Tanzania the following day is like a vision from Dante's hell. 'You definitely don't want to swim in it. It would burn your skin off,' says our co-pilot Aaron D'Cruz through his headset as we bank down low for a closer look at the lake's potent soda ash crust in our 12-seater propeller plane. We're on our way to Shompole, a safari region southeast of the Mara that's far less known. Explorations Company anticipates it's on the cusp of finally getting the attention it deserves, thanks to the opening of a luxury lodge from high-profile safari operator Great Plains in 2026, but we're headed for another small, family-run camp called Shompole Wilderness. Below us, the lake's mottled surface creates beautiful, rippling veins that look like stilton. The soda ash is one of the area's biggest exports, but the nutrients also make the area a prolific breeding ground for flamingos and pelicans, which draws bird enthusiasts. Before long, the plane is surrounded by flamingos. Some fly straight past my window; others appear to float below our metal wings, like dozens of pink arrows soaring towards invisible targets. From up here, I can see the same circular village bomas I'd seen flying over the Mara, but the landscape is much more arid — the earth cracked like a dry heel, small whirlwinds called dust devils spinning around lonely acacia trees. 'What makes Shompole so special is that the river flowing from the escarpment provides a green area and swamp — that's why all the wildlife comes here during the dry season,' says Aaron. Sure enough, as we land, I see an eruption of greenery in the parched expanse below. The river in question is the Ewaso Ng'iro, and it's right in front of my base for the next two nights, which is run by Kenyans Sam and Johann du Toit. There are just six wood-hewn guest rooms built by Johann, rooted among the riverbank foliage, with a small pool, a bird hide and a large, communal, open-sided lounge with steps down to the river. Like Roca, this camp has close ties to the Maasai and conservation initiatives. It recruits from local communities and invests in training, while Sam is the right-hand woman of Maasai conservation leader John Kamanga. Winner of the 2020 Tusk Award for Conservation in Africa, John is a passionate advocate for fence-free landscapes and has dedicated his career to finding a way for pastoralists and wildlife to coexist in the South Rift landscape. He's the co-founder of SORALO (South Rift Association of Land Owners), a community-based organisation for which Sam acts as consultant. It employs 147 Maasai rangers who patrol an area half the size of Belgium. 'Because of their work, the camp can exist,' Sam tells me as she shows me around, her loose-fitting cotton trousers smudged with traces of earth, beaded Maasai anklets above her trainers. It's noticeably hotter here than in the Mara. Outside my room, I find a resident troop of baboons cooling off by jumping gleefully into the fudge-coloured water, their bare bums slapping on the surface with an almighty crash. Before long, the water calls me in, too — it's rare to find a river like this one in southern Kenya without crocodiles and hippos, and one of the lodge's specialities is river tubing and kayaking. The baboons scarper as my group, including the owners' kids and their dog, scramble into fat tyre rings and take off into the slow, tepid flow. It's a welcome change of pace from the 4WD and a fresh perspective on the shoreline. The fig trees framing the bank rustle with vervet monkeys, and I can pick out the faint imprint of a path along the bank closest to my room, which is used as an elephant corridor. The absence of other guests makes the setting feel almost primeval; there are no sounds save for the languid flow of water and occasional chatter of the kids. Later that day, I head out again in the 4WD. This time it's with Johann, a broad-shouldered man with a booming voice and wicked sense of humour. We're en route to spend the night at his passion project — a solar-powered photography hide around a watering hole, three miles from camp. Also in the car is Richard 'Maren' Merenkoi — a 24-year-old Maasai man robed in a traditional red shuka (a cloth garment and a symbol of the Maasai's resilience), whose face lights up when he smiles. He began his career at Shompole Wilderness five years ago, initially in room service. 'The animals make this place,' he says as we pass a dazzle of zebras nibbling among a thatch of thorny acacia bushes, kicking up earth the colour of lion's fur. 'It's our pride to have them; in the conservancy, people, livestock and wildlife — we all live together.' This understanding, that animal protection is far more powerful than poaching or hunting, has become more common in the conservancy zones in the past decade thanks to efforts by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to engage the local communities that live within them. 'When I was a kid, an NGO came to my school to talk about the benefits of conservation. One day, I'd like to do the same,' Maren tells me. Next year, the camp will help pay to put him through his guide training so he can get qualified. It's just before dusk when we arrive at the hide — a half-sunken metal container with grass walls that have been scorched by the sun. 'We knew the area wasn't a good grazing zone, so the Maasai wouldn't mind if we set up here,' says Johann as he navigates the water's edge, checking lighting hook-ups haven't been chewed by baboons, then wades in to clean the pool's surface to maximise its mirrored reflection. Once the location had been approved by the local communities, he employed local Maasai to help dig the 52.5-foot pool and the channels for the piping that comes from the river to fill it. It doesn't look like much from the back, but Johann tells me that since it was completed three years ago, it's been attracting photographers from all over the world. Its USP is the specialist lighting, with front and side hook-ups, plus 59 feet of backlighting, all on dimmer switches to create atmosphere and ensure animals don't get blinded or disturbed. 'I wanted to get it right,' he tells me. 'But I also wanted to make the hide accessible for people with smartphone cameras.' Bookings at Shompole Wilderness are starting to soar, because of it. 'The hide has changed our whole business.' With glasses of Chardonnay poured and chicken curry served in tiffin boxes, we settle in on a row of directors' chairs inside. It isn't long before four stocky warthogs arrive, one trotting straight into the water and plonking himself down, a puff of dust rising from his belly. Through the glassless windows, we have an eye-level view, backdropped by the hulk of Mt Shompole rearing in the distance. The framing is so perfect it looks like a CGI film set. As darkness creeps in and Maren and Johann start playing with the lighting's dimmer switches, a giraffe lollops by, splaying its legs comically to get low enough to drink. The procession of animals continues long into the night. Elephants come within a hair's breadth of my seat, spraying water in broad arcs that glitter like falling stars as they catch the backlights. Finally we get a succession of lions. Although they can't see us in the hide, they keep their eyes firmly fixed on our position on the far side of the pond as four of them drink in a row. They're so close, I can hear them lapping. While Johann is in the process of building another hide, Sam is working with SORALO to trial a new tour for guests of Shompole Wilderness, in partnership with the organisation's Ilaaretok programme. The express purpose of the Ilaaretok initiative is to reduce human-wildlife conflict by employing members of the local Maasai villages as extra pairs of eyes and hands — community guardians, if you will. In the Maasai language, the word ilaaretok means 'helpers'. The following day, I set out to join them in one of their roles: getting cattle home and unharmed each night by accompanying farmers on the walk back to their villages. I hear the clang of cowbells tumbling over the plains before we reach the 70-strong herd, and the dozen or so Maasai men driving them forward. The Ilaaretok's role is one of deterrent, keeping watch and trying to prevent possible wildlife conflict scenarios. Unlike rangers, they don't carry guns; some choose to wield the traditional Maasai spear instead. Alongside daily cattle watches, they raise the alarm when lion pawprints are spotted, transport injured cows for veterinary care and track lost livestock to bring it back to farmers. It seems odd to be out on foot in lion country, but also wonderfully freeing. Knives at their waists, rigid bead necklaces ringing their throats, decorative belts hung loose, the farmers and their Ilaaretok companions walk in a banded line. 'The Ilaaretok are the first people out in the landscape in the morning and last at night,' says Joshua Lesikar Parsaloi, the stocky group supervisor, as we walk slowly together across the plains, the hot embers of the day still warming the earth beneath our boots. Dressed head to toe in desert-storm beige, he explains that every six months, the team of patrollers rotates, to help spread the employment opportunity among the local communities. It's an in-demand job, as the role requires fewer qualifications or experience than is needed to become a ranger. Launched three years ago, the programme has been hailed a great success and now employs 72 people in eight groups, two of which operate in Shompole. Joshua pauses to point out a pair of hoof prints stamped into the dust at our feet. 'This one is a gazelle, this one is a cow,' he says, highlighting how closely the land is shared between wildlife and livestock. The sun is starting to wane, sucking the heat out of the sky. Knowing from my night in the hide how many lions roam this area at night, I suddenly wonder if maybe we're being watched. I ask if there could be cause for concern, us strolling across Shompole in the footsteps of these great predators. But Joshua just chuckles. For the Maasai, the wildlife is a simple fact of life. 'It's not easy to attack a cow in an open area like this — they're afraid of us.' And besides, he says, 'a lion is very friendly compared to a buffalo'. He looks back at me as we walk on, passing a clump of acacia from which a couple of herders are trying to coax some goats, and adds with a matter-of-fact shrug: 'The buffalo will wait for you behind a bush.' Published in the June 2025 issue of National Geographic Traveller (UK).To subscribe to National Geographic Traveller (UK) magazine click here. (Available in select countries only).
