Petition Extension
The poaching crisis is escalating at an alarming rate fueled by Chinese demand for ivory. It is being carried out by very sophisticated gang related individuals. As such, WorldWomenWork is planning to concentrate much its efforts in 2012 in helping to tackle this urgent problem. We are therefore extending the time frame for our petition to November 1st in order to maximize its impact. Please share with your friends and urge them to sign the petition. We have to stop this slaughter.
Film Update
WorldWomenWork and Swell Pictures are in the process of producing a film on the crisis and have done and are doing a number of interviews, including Crawford Allen, Director of TRAFFIC, North America, Dr. Iain Douglas-Hamilton, Founder and CEO Save the Elephants, Carter Roberts, President and CEO World Willdlife Fund U.S., Ginette Hemley, Senior Vice President, Conservation and Science. We will be announcing the release date of the film as soon as we have one. Watch this space!
World Women Work is delighted to announce a new partnership with friend and Interior Designer, Kathryn Schumacher. Following her recent trip to Africa with Singer, Kathryn was inspired to create pillows from indigenous fabrics exclusively for WWW.
Kathryn Schumacher Designs grew out of Kathryn’s twenty-three years as an Interior Designer with projects in California, New Mexico, New York, Washington, Florida and Illinois. She loves color, textiles, patterns, artistic detail and travel, all of which provide inspiration for her decorative pillow collections.
Kathryn has been friends with Singer for over 15 years and jumped at the recent opportunity to travel with Singer to her beloved Africa. As a result of this trip Kathryn was inspired to create a selection of beautiful African oriented pillows exclusively for WorldWomenWork. Kathryn was struck by their vivacious spirit and the pride with which they wore their brightly colored and patterned clothing. “It was a life-changing trip,” Kathryn said. “We realized that, for people like us with so much, how little it takes to change other lives for the better.”
We are thrilled with this wonderful collaboration and delighted that we can participate in the debut of Kathryn’s stunning new Africa collection. The African pillows debut for sale this month at the WorldWomenWork website (www.worldwomenwork.org) and at www.kathrynschumacher.com.
All the designs are individual one-offs – check them out – and tell your friends!
The Grevy’s Zebra Trust sent us this video to thank us for all our support over the year, and to wish us a Merry Christmas. We thought it would be a nice way to say Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all our wonderful supporters as well. See what we can achieve with your help! See you in the New Year!
Singer Rankin
Jewelry designer Vicky Chignall working with Maasai craftspeople create beautiful jewelry designs. WorldWomenWork helps by providing a market for these stunning pieces.
This was WorldWomenWork’s first trip to Botswana and Zambia arranged by Explore for 10 people. It was a beautiful mix of animals and people. We drove from Lusaka to the Lower Zambezi which was an education in itself. The road narrow and full of pot holes used by many trucks going to mines is a true mess but worth experiencing to get the full flavor of what is going on!
We stopped at the Riverside School for lunch and to see where WWW scholarship students have attended tailoring and organic farming school.
It is an incredibly well run school.
From there we went on to the fish farm which is spectacular – 3 ponds holding 9000 fish each. Stanley, the founder, is an amazing guy. The ladies caught fish for our dinner. We met with Isaiah who coordinates all the local projects. What a man!
We visited the clinic and school in Chiawa. It was decided on the spot by my group at the school to refurbish the girls dormitory. Mattresses on the floor are all they have and a toilet somewhere behind the occasional bush. We are funding new double decker beds, glass in the windows and a new toilet building. The girls will paint the inside and out. I won’t go into any more detail since we were updated in great detail at the board meeting. We were highly impressed by all the projects.
You come away after meeting the people involved with such admiration for everything they do. I feel it is so important to make people realize who have so much what little it takes to change peoples lives.
Cherri and Richard you are amazing. And to top everything as we were approaching shore at your camp for drinks there appear a family of elephants with babies coming down to drink.
All of us at Elephant Watch and Save the Elephants, have been deeply shocked at the tragic killing of Khadija in Samburu, the last adult female of the SWAHILI LADIES. One by one her whole family had been killed last year and she was looking after her young and 5 orphans. In early June she had been badly wounded. We kept a close watch on her movements and on the 24th, STE with the help of Ian Craig immobilised her when she came into the Reserve, they treated her wounds, put a collar on her and injected a massive dose of antibiotics and vitamins. With difficulty she managed to pull herself up on to her feet, and wandered off slowly. We were able to follow her wandering and she was gradually getting better. For some reason she kept going south towards the “bad lands”. On the night of July 13th in the light of the full moon as she wandered towards the river she was gunned down on the southern boundary line, in a barrage of bullets. We found her faceless with 8 bullet wounds in her body, the collar removed and hidden nearby. Her tusks had immediately been hacked off and taken to a trader.
The Chinese Road Phenomenon and The Last Great Tuskers
Despite the potential benefits for development, a new Chinese-Built Road has brought a number of problems to this once remote area. Incidents of poaching and bush meat hunting have soared since the construction camp was established. Additionally, wildlife is being hit by fast moving trucks.
(Click Here to View Video about the Chinese Road)
Update on the Chinese Road Project and The Last Great Tuskers:
from Lucy King, Chief Operations Officer, Save The Elephants:
With the help of donations like yours, “The Chinese road is being monitored every week and we’re identifying the big tusker elephants which are now few and far between. Amongst the elephants of northern Kenya there are still a handful of huge elephant bulls carrying majestic tusks. They are at the mercy of the poachers and we fear this recent poaching outbreak is the worst news for those old boys.”
An appeal from WorldWomenWork in support of Save the Elephants:
We are living in a world of over population, stressed ecosystems, poverty, greed and extreme wealth. Elephants seem to be taking a last stand. It is unacceptable that these majestic creatures should be gunned down with extreme cruelty to satisfy the greed of the Chinese. A war is taking place, anti poaching patrols are at the mercy of these guns too. It is our duty to give our support to those who are doing everything within their power to stop this useless killing.
Funds are needed desperately. Click to donate support for:
Aerial surveys to spot carcasses and poachers
A car for quick response on the ground to gun shots and alarms from volunteer scouts.
Picture of Prunella the elephant was taken by David Dabbalen on 30th April
I recently received the following report from Iain Douglas-Hamilton in Kenya. World Women Work supports two projects in Samburu National Reserve in northern Kenya – Save The Elephants and the Elephant Monitoring Project – and it is distressing when we have to report endangered animals, especially our majestic African elephants. We try to provide nice elephant pictures but in this case we hope that by highlighting the problem of elephant poaching we can rally support in stopping it.
Iain reports – We have a poaching crisis in the Mt Kenya forests that I thought you should be aware, reported by Associated Press yesterday (Elephants killed near Prince William, Kate cabin). Out of our seven elephants that we collared in December and January, already four are dead. The most recent was the elephant Prunella who died last week, caught in a gigantic snare presumably dying of thirst and starvation just before David and a Kenya Wildlife Service rescue team who arrived on the scene after trekking through unbelievable thick forest and broken country. We are now coping with the emergency in collaboration with the Kenya Wildlife Service, Northern Rangelands Trust, Lewa and the Woodley Mt. Kenya Woodley Trust. We are glad that we were able to help identify this crisis surrounding radio tracking and thank our associates and our very generous donors who paid for the collars and the helicopter borne darting operation. This was greatly facilitated by Ian Craig and Kenya Wildlife Service working with Save The Elephants.
You can also see our video from Samburu National Park – Elephants in Peril. And, of course a contribution to help our work in supporting Iain’s Save The Elephants project is always appreciated!
WorldWomenWork is proud to announce support for the Grevy’s Zebra Trust. Strong community involvement combined with cutting edge conservation techniques has begun to reverse decades of habitat degredation for a critically endangered species, the Grevy’s Zebra.
The Grevy’s Zebra Trust was established to conserve Grevy’s zebra, an endangered species, across its range in collaboration with local communities. Located in Kenya, with extension to Ethiopia, we recognise the critical role played by pastoral people whose livelihoods are inextricably linked to the same landscape.
Save the Elephants has been monitoring elephants in Northern Kenya since 1995 through two key methods: individual identification and monitoring, and remote tracking using collars. STE is also heavily involved with monitoring the illegal killing of elephants in Samburu and Laikipia districts and works closely with the Kenya Wildlife Service to share data and identify poaching hotspots. Unfortunately, not only is poaching still widely evident in northern Kenya, but STE and KWS are starting to see smaller and smaller ivory tusks being confiscated off poachers. Any elephant carrying decent sized tusks these days will almost certainly be at threat from poachers during his or her lifetime. Amongst the elephants of northern Kenya there are still a handful of huge elephant bulls carrying majestic tusks. These large-tusked, old bull elephants carry some of the best genetics of the population and their survival is critical if their successful genes are to be passed onto the next generation.
STE already monitors some of these large bulls but resources are tight and the distances that they have to travel to monitor and collar these bulls are vast. WWW is helping to support STE’s efforts to monitor and track these last great tuskers and to assist with their protection.
The Chinese Road Phenomenon
Since 2007 the wild northern road that stretches from Mount Kenya up to the border of Ethiopia has been under intense construction by a Chinese Road company. The conversion of a rough track to a tarmac super-highway is anticipated to bring faster access to remote areas of northern Kenya helping to improve business links and tourism opportunities. Unfortunately the new road passes directly between three national reserves, Samburu, Buffalo Springs and Shaba. Save the Elephants works in all three of these reserves monitoring and tracking elephant movements to help us understand elephant behaviour and how elephants use the environment. Despite the potential benefits for development, the highway has brought a number of problems to this once remote area. Incidents of poaching and bush meat hunting have soared since the construction camp was established next to Shaba. Additionally, wildlife is being hit by fast moving trucks as there are no speed bumps or traffic calming measures presently in place along the stretch of road passing through the reserves.
Two incidents of elephants and their calves being hit by trucks have been carefully reported on by STE staff but not all incidents will be so carefully tracked due to the time consuming nature of monitoring the road kill reports. WWW is helping to provide resources to STE to enable them to monitor and report on any road kill incidents that involve elephants and any other endangered species. Additionally the funds will support STE’s efforts to engage in a dialogue with the road company and county council officers to get better sign postage and traffic alert measures along the highway. These methods should help to warn drivers that they are entering a wildlife migration zone and that careful driving is required to avoid hitting crossing animals. STE will also continue to report all incidents of poached or injured elephants to Kenya Wildlife Service to assist them with controlling poaching outbreaks in the area.
