 |
Empowers Africa advisory committee member Gabriella Gentil and trustee Krista Krieger having breakfast with a giraffe at the fabled Giraffe Manor in Nairobi, Kenya, during an October 2013 trip.
|
|
 | |
Sonje wants to play. Photo credit: DSWT.
|
The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust (DSWT) is the most successful orphan elephant rescue and rehabilitation program in the world, and one of the pioneer conservation organizations for wildlife and habitat protection in East Africa. At the heart of its many conservation activities is the Orphan's Project. This project offers hope for the future of Kenya's threatened elephant and rhino populations, which are both struggling against the threat of poaching for their ivory and horns; the loss of their natural habitat due to the encroaching human population; and the realities stemming from area human conflicts, deforestation, and droughts. The ivory trade kills an estimated 36,000 elephants a year. This number does not illustrate the irreversible damage. These massacres leave behind innocent victims and wipe out breeding females and males, leaving the elephant population in crisis. To date, the DSWT has successfully raised by hand over 160 infant elephants and has accomplished its long-term conservation priority by reintegrating the orphans back into the wild. For more information, visit
 | |
Picture of elephants in the nursery (left) and Teleki (right). Photo credits: DSWT.
|
|
Thanks to our successful fundraiser with Davina Dobie in East Hampton this summer and the generosity of private donors, we're excited to report that we've been able to make five additional grants in 2013. Each of these recipients is doing incredible work and making a pronounced impact on the community and/or conservation area where they are working. If you're inspired by what you read below and want to give, click here.
 Grant #1 - The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust
www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org
Empowers Africa made a grant to the DSWT to fund the rescue of the growing number of orphaned elephants. The grant went toward the cost of rescue, including, charter flights, medicine, ground transportation, and rescue team salaries. Orphan rescue involves rapid response to remote areas of Kenya. A rescue team is flown in by charter, and the elephants are then transported by ground back to the Nairobi Nursery. For more information on the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, read the article at the top of this newsletter.
 Grant #2 - The Big Life Foundation
biglife.org
Empowers Africa has made its third grant to The Big Life Foundation to fund the salaries of rangers who conduct antipoaching activities, create and maintain antipoaching camps, and conduct surveillance of the Amboseli-Tsavo ecosystem. Big Life employs 160 rangers in 18 camps, with full mobile and aerial support. Big Life's vision is to establish a successful holistic conservation model in the Amboseli-Tsavo ecosystem that can eventually become a transferable model to be replicated across the African continent.
 Grant #3 - Wildlife Conservation Society www.wcs.org Empowers Africa has made its second grant to Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) to support its antipoaching efforts in the Niassa National Reserve in Mozambique. The Niassa National Reserve is Mozambique's most important protected area and is also one of Africa's largest protected areas. It harbors the country's largest population of wildlife, including 70 percent of Mozambique's elephants. The combined Selous-Niassa elephant population is approximately 50,000-55,000. Since WCS's signing of the memorandum of understanding regarding the comanagement of the Niassa National Reserve with the Mozambique Ministry of Tourism on October 9, 2012, the Reserve has received year-round presence for the first time in many years. WCS expects to mitigate threats to wildlife populations, train and deploy eco-guards, continue aerial surveillance, and establish local informant networks to gather intelligence on illegal activities in the landscape. Empowers Africa's grant was applied to field staff who work to tackle elephant poaching, help stop illegal logging, and address threats to biodiversity in the area.
 Grant #4 - Dalton Education Trust: Renovations to Siyazama Centre
www.daltoneducationtrust.com
ZuluWaters Game Reserve founded the Dalton Education Trust in 2008 as a way to give back to the surrounding communities of Dalton Bridge, Ezindikini, and Mhubheni. It has a specific focus on early childhood development, and aims to provide intervention that addresses the current needs of the community while also investing in the future of the area's children. Empowers Africa purchased and installed gutters and rainwater tanks and fixed the roof of the Siyazama Centre for Early Education to prevent rainfall from entering the building during the rainy season. The guttering and tanks will enable the school to capture and store water, providing much-needed water for the students.
 Grant #5 - WildlifeDirect
www.wildlifedirect.org
Recently, WildlifeDirect and its amazing leader, Paula Kahumbu, have been working feverishly to stop the elephant poaching crisis. Their work focuses on putting poachers behind bars by forcing Kenyan laws to be applied properly; mobilizing the people of Kenya to stand up for their heritage of being the home to elephants, rhinos, and other wild animals; working to change the existing anti-poaching laws to require a 15-year jail sentence (under current laws, the maximum term is 3 years) and larger fines; running public awareness campaigns; lobbying to have China ban the trade of ivory; and much more. WildlifeDirect has helped put six poachers behind bars in the past month, which is twice as many as in the past three years! Read more about WildlifeDirect in a recent post on our website.
|
 | | The first International March for Elephants took place on Oct. 4 in 15 cities all over the world. |
The International March for Elephants took place on October 4, 2013. In 15 cities across the globe, peaceful marchers gathered in support of ending the ivory trade worldwide.
In New York City, participants started at Pier 81 on the west side and marched across town to the U.N. Headquarters. Over 500 people gathered in support with banners that read, "One elephant is killed every 15 minutes. At this rate NONE will be roaming in the wild in 2025." The goal of the march was to raise global awareness of the illegal ivory trade and its disastrous impact on the elephant population.
The event was organized by iworry, an advocacy campaign by Kenyan conservation charity The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. According to iworry, preventing the slaughter of elephants for their ivory has never been more critical than it is today. Though laws ban the trade in ivory internationally, the continued demand in consumer countries has resulted in a thriving black market and elephant poaching.
As a result of the illegal ivory and wildlife trade:
- one elephant is killed every 15 minutes for its tusks, 36,000 elephants are slaughtered annually.
- Criminal syndicates and terrorist groups threaten global and national security.
- In countries where tourism is the primary industry, millions risk losing their livelihoods.
- Tourism revenue for developing countries has declined, increasing their need for aid.
- Over 1,000 wildlife rangers have been killed in the course of protecting the elephants over the past decade, leaving families without fathers, husbands, and income earners.
To learn more, check out www.iworry.org.
 | |
(Top left) Kristin Davis, award-winning actress and longtime supporter of The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust (Photo Credit: Davina Dobie); (top right) Davina Dobie of The Silent Trumpet leading "the charge"; (right wearing black t-shirt) Bryan Christy, National Geographic author of "Bloody Ivory"; (middle wearing white t-shirt) Christie Brinkley and others marching to the U.N.; (bottom) Paula Kahumbu of WildlifeDirect.
|
|
|
Travel Journal: A Recent Trip to the Congo, Rwanda, and Kenya
|
Empowers Africa's trustee Krista Krieger and advisory committee member Gabriella Gentil recently travelled to Odzala-Kokoua National Park, located in the Republic of Congo. Wilderness Safaris has two safari camps in this very remote part of Africa. They then traveled to Nairobi, Kenya, and visited The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, a grantee of Empowers Africa. Here are a few photos from this trip.
 Photo credits: (Gorillas) Dana Allen, (Community Photos) Gabriella Gentil. The two amazing park rangers shown are (white jacket) Maxwell Muswere and (wearing binoculars) Karl Diakite. To see more pictures from this trip, click here.
|
|
Four Ways You Can Help Stop the Slaughter of Elephants:
|
 | | Tell them we sent you! |
We all know we must do something to help save wild elephants in Africa. Here are four ways that you can help.
1. Say no to ivory. We need to change the perceptions that make ivory a desirable commodity.
2. Spread the word. Tell people in your community that an elephant is killed every 15 minutes for the illegal ivory trade. If we don't do something, there will be no elephants roaming wild in Africa by 2025.
3. Contact your senator and encourage him or her to promote legislation that protects elephants.
|
|
African Parks Hosts the President of Chad in NYC
|
 | (Left) Michel Reveyrand de Menthon and (Right) Republic of Chad President Idriss Deby. Photo credits in this section: Annie Watt.
|
On September 24, members of the African Parks organization and guests gathered at the River Club in New York City to discuss the protection of wildlife resources and elephant preservation in Chad.
A panel of speakers included the Chadian President Idriss Deby; Mahamat Issa Halikimi, the prime minister, the minister of environment and water resources; and Peter Hearnhead, CEO of African Parks.
Other guests included Rob Walton, David Bonderman, Marvin and Donna Schwartz, African Parks Foundation board chair Ron Ulrich, and foundation director Nicole Mollo. In total, over 85 guests gathered to learn more about the elephant-poaching crisis in Chad. The savannah elephants in Chad, and in particular the herds in the Zakouma National Park, are among the last remaining herds north of the rain forests of Central Africa. Elephant numbers have dropped from an estimated 4,300 in 2002 to 454 in April 2011, with the vast majority of animals killed between 2006 and 2009.
Zakouma National Park has been described as one of the last strongholds for Central African wildlife and is considered a major conservation success story. Zakouma was proclaimed a national park in 1963, and African Parks formally took on the management in October 2010. The European Union has funded Zakouma since 1989, with about €20 million expended for park management during this time. Through a joint decision by the European Union and the Government of Chad, African Parks was approached to take over the management of the park, with the mandate agreement being signed in June 2010. The park covers an area of 3,054km2 and forms a crucial part of a greater ecosystem of approximately 25,000km2.
Since African Parks' involvement, most species of larger mammals, including buffalo, giraffe, roan antelope, and Lelwel hartebeest have increased in number. In addition, the first elephant calves in many years have been birthed in Zakouma; this is a sign of recovery and the reemerging stability of their environment. An enormous effort is now being put into protecting this unique Central African population of elephants. Through the protection of this flagship species, countless other species of fauna and flora are also being protected within this unique Sudano-Sahelian ecosystem. Click here to see more pictures from this event.
 | | Jean Claude Nzamba and Rob Walton |
 | | Raoul Witteveen, Peter Fearnhead |
|
|
|
Empowers Africa Event February 6, 2014
|
The trustees and advisory committee of Empowers Africa invite you to The Explorers Club for cocktails and dinner on February 6, 2014. Empowers Africa supports programs in the areas of human empowerment, wildlife protection, and land conservation in sub-Saharan Africa. Cocktails will begin at 6:30pm and there will be a buffet dinner at 8:00pm. The event will host approximately 200 guests. There will be a brief live auction at 7:30pm, which will include phenomenal safaris. Dancing and dessert will follow dinner. You can purchase tickets by clicking here or on the RSVP below. 
|
|
|
|
|
|
2 Beekman Place, Suite 18B New York, NY 10022 (917) 328-1611 (Phone) | (917) 591-1979 (Fax) www.empowersafrica.org |
|
|
|
