Elephant conservation in Kenya

These elephants are unlike other well known elephants. They have suffered many years of ivory poaching and continue to be affected by human expansion, the bush meat trade and competition with humans and livestock for resources. Some of these known individuals have portions of their trunks missing due to snares; other elephants have died after being hit with poison spears when they moved to their dispersal range. Data from this project are helping the Kenya Wildlife Service and private landowners make wise decisions on wildlife corridors, fencing and water provision. Conflict between elephants and humans is a major concern in this region but data from this project are helping to reduce it, protect and preserve elephants and their habitats.

There is an environmental policy for this expedition and sustainable practices are implemented wherever possible. These include addressing issues of resources, waste, water, energy, biodiversity, together with adhering to ‘leave no trace’ principles.

We are a not-for-profit international environmental organisation committed to conserving the diversity of life on earth and the world’s natural resources in order to meet the needs of current and future generations. On any one of our many projects around the world you are certainly not a tourist. You will be working as a field assistant helping world renowned scientists on real environmental projects, and learning about conservation issues. We give people the knowledge and the motivation to do something positive towards helping the environment, regardless of experience and background.

The data that you will help to collect will be used to inform conservation decision makers around the world. Since 1971 our research has led to:

the discovery of 2000 new species

the creation of new national parks, reserves and protected areas

the collection of crucial data leading to better-informed conservation decisions

over 80,000 volunteers contributing over 10 million hours of fieldwork

We are aware that many people travel to their project by air and recognise the impact of this on the environment. In an effort to minimise this, we have teamed up with an organisation that offsets emissions from your flights by funding renewable energy, energy efficient and forest restoration projects around the world.

As an environmental organisation we recognise that our day-to-day operations have an impact on the local, regional and global environment. We have an environmental policy which outlines our commitment to continuous improvements in our environmental performance. We have developed an Environmental Management System based on the guidelines and standards set out in ISO14001 and the Global Reporting Initiative, in order to measure our performance against agreed targets to deliver our environmental policy. These include: paper usage, recycling, responsible travel, carbon offsetting, green energy providers and many more environmental and social principles that form a continuous thread throughout our whole operations.