Tsavo Trust
Action-orientated, field-based work to give the wildlife and people of Tsavo the right to a future.
Giving the people and elephants of Tsavo a better future
Tsavo Trust partners with government, communities, and other NGOs across more than 22,000 km2 of the Tsavo Conservation Area (TCA) to create a thriving landscape for people and wildlife. TCA is a massive landscape harboring 18% of Kenya’s black rhino population and the country’s largest elephant population (approximately 15,000). It is also home to at least 10 rare “Super Tusker” elephants that have majestic tusks that scrape the ground.
Tsavo Trust is a key partner to the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), which manages Tsavo East and West National Parks. Tsavo Trust provides support for aerial and ground biodiversity monitoring, anti-poaching, and security operations, and attracts additional funding to the TCA. Beyond the park’s boundaries, Tsavo Trust has leveraged on its strong field presence and understanding of local context to bring communities and landowners together to form two community conservancies - Kamungi Conservancy and Shirango Community Conservancy.
Tsavo Trust has supported the conservancies and in return have observed reduced poaching, logging, and charcoal production in these areas, while wildlife populations have increased. The success in these conservancies has drawn attention from other surrounding communities and other NGOs and Tsavo Trust are seeking ways to scale up their community conservation efforts across this landscape.
Reduced poaching
Alongside KWS and other Tsavo stakeholders, Tsavo Trust has played a vital role in completely halting rhino poaching since 2017 and reducing elephant poaching by at least 70% over the last 9 years.
New conservancies established
Tsavo Trust helped steward the establishment and development of two key community conservancies in the TCA – the Kamungi and Shirango Community Conservancies - which have 1,400 and 2,300 registered members respectively. Tsavo Trust helped create a “culture of conservation” in these areas, resulting in less forest degradation and more wildlife in these areas. Conservancy directly benefit through employment in Tsavo Trust (65% of Tsavo Trust employees come from the community), provision of water infrastructure, support to schools and students, support to the local dispensaries, and livelihoods improvement through initiatives such as Village Savings and Loan Schemes. Human-wildlife conflict mitigation strategies have resulted in increased food security for community members in the these two communities.