Blog
News, field reports and writing from MSWC and the conservancies it works with.
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This week, the whole staff of The Pangolin Project, around thirty people, is in the second module of a LAMP, MSWC’s Leadership and Management Training Program. Module 2 began on Wednesday 7 October and runs to Friday, led by Heiz Wadegu and Lavias Lekuuk of Forward Consulting. The first module ran from 7 to 11…
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Elephants on Mount Elgon in western Kenya appear to seek out medicinal plants when they are unwell. The evidence comes from the Sabaot scouts and elders who live alongside them.
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The Elephant Mamas LAMP began this week in Mayianat, a community conservancy near Dol Dol in Laikipia North, about 52 kilometres north of Nanyuki: three days of training, Monday to Wednesday, for thirty women, led by Heiz Wadegu and Esther Gilisho of Forward Consulting. The women in this cohort live inside a major elephant corridor.…
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Management Skills for Wildlife Conservation (MSWC) is pleased to welcome Alexander Ramirez Blonski to its Advisory Board. Alexander Ramirez Blonski is Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer at Columbus Earth, an applied AI lab building geospatial models and map products, where he leads product, design, and business strategy. A business and economics student, he is a…
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At the end of July, twenty-five Moran herders in Laikipia County, Kenya, completed the first module of Rangelands LAMP, a new version of the Leadership and Management Program built for the people who actually run the grazing lands. Allan Ward, who leads the course, wrote to MSWC the next day: the impact “went way beyond…
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Kenya’s first national conference dedicated to community-led conservation takes place from 2 to 6 November 2026 at Brackenhurst Conference Centre in Limuru, just outside Nairobi. MSWC contributed funding for the conference organization. The gathering will bring together community leaders from across Africa, conservation practitioners, policymakers, funders and international partners, with 150 to 200 participants expected.…
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Richard Vigne argues that conservation in Africa must deliver environmental protection, economic growth and community benefit at the same time, and that achieving one at the expense of the others weakens both conservation and the economies that depend on it.
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MSWC President Guy Pfeffermann has written about Ewaso Lions for WellBeing International. The piece traces how a small research project in northern Kenya grew into one of the most effective community-led conservation organizations in the region. Ewaso Lions was founded in 2007 by Dr. Shivani Bhalla and Samburu pastoralist Jeneria Lekilelei. They began with a…
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The need For more than ten years, funders have backed the work at the center of community-led conservation across East and Southern Africa — training rangers, restoring rangelands, protecting wildlife corridors, building water access. Much of that work has succeeded. But the people doing it — board members, managers, rangers, herders, women’s groups — have…
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Northern Rangelands Trust (NRT) cites Good Governance, Effective Management, and Financial Viability as the three pillars underpinning NRT’s approach to conservancy resilience. The Report outlines Good Governance as “community-driven decision making that results in strong community ownership, equitable benefit distribution, and transparent and accountable conservancy boards and administration”. MSWC contributed to the realisation of these…