Troop Talk: Baboon Community Chronicles
Community
• 10 min read
How We Work With The Surrounding Community To Improve Their Daily Livelihoods And Conserve The Baboons.
UNBP has actively sought to remake natural connections through community projects such as those described below, and some more unusual ones, such as:
The first all-Maasai cricket team.
The Maasai Cricket Warriors, a unique initiative under the Uaso Ngiro Baboon Project, began in 2007 when South African researcher Aliya Bauer introduced cricket to Maasai youth in Laikipia, Kenya. Initially a pastime during her fieldwork, the sport resonated with the young morans, who found parallels between cricket and their traditional skills like spear-throwing. This enthusiasm led to the formation of a team that not only embraced the game but also used it as a platform for social change.
A video by Barney Douglass on Warriors.
Deborah Ross Art Work Project.
UNBP has worked with many other partners on education for conservation topics for children and adults.
U.S. artist Deborah Ross, whose warm and compelling watercolors grace this website, has been holding painting workshops from 2008 - 2012 in the communities near the Uaso Ngiro Baboon Project.
"I returned to Kenya this summer to continue my painting workshops. It is a terrible drought in Kenya, the worst in the last 40 years. Animals were dying by the road. Very sad."
"The children, however, LOVED the painting workshop. I believe it gave some respite from their very hard lives. In a strange twist, I was working on a project of retrieving traditional knowledge of Maasai plant medicine. The plants were all but gone, but we sought them out nonetheless! The medicine man was a big help and spent time working with the children to share his knowledge. We even went on a field trip to the forest, but unfortunately, we were cut off by elephants who had the same idea about where the green things live." - Deborah, September 2009.
Deborah Ross.
Diversifying The Economic Base.
In economically marginalized areas, even modest income opportunities can be life-changing helping communities endure droughts, provide for their families, and reduce environmental pressures on surrounding ecosystems.
In the early 1980s, a community initiative in Gilgil supported the development of a woolcraft program, enabling local farmers to convert livestock wool into handcrafted carpets for sale-boosting incomes and local entrepreneurship.
When the spread of the invasive Opuntia cactus posed a growing environmental problem, UNBP partnered with Twala to create a solution. Beginning in 2008, they began producing a cocktail syrup from the cactus fruit and now provide cactus fruit to producers of a distinctive, eco-conscious product.
Curious about how tourism supports conservation? Dive deeper on the Ecotourism page.