Loisaba Ranch - Laikipia

Says the Manager of Nairobi's recently established Conservation Service Centre - "Wild animals need more room to roam that Parks can ever provide, and the only way they'll get it is if people get some economic reward from sharing their land with them and moving from a cattle-based economy to a wildlife-based economy, illustrating that the people can actually earn more money from tourism and other businesses while allowing the land to regenerate". This is a noble ideal within the grasp of pastoral tribes who are not partial to eating game meat, and who are not involved in the lucrative bush-meat business, but not for the majority of Kenya's population. Loisaba bestrides the border of Laikipia and Kenya’s rugged Northern Frontier District. Only a few miles from the equator, this private game ranch comprises of 60,000 acres in an area of remote beauty where the farm management and local Laikipiak Maasai & Samburu community work together to preserve the environment and abundant surrounding wildlife. The Western boundary borders with the warlike Pokot tribe, who are certainly not known to be ele-friendly. There poaching, cattle rustling, and resolving tribal vendettas is common place. The view from Loisaba extends hundreds of miles – to Mount Kenya, the Loldaiga Hills and the Mathews Range. Through Loisaba roam Elephant, Lion and Leopard alongside the endemic northern species that thrive there – Gerenuk, Grevy’s Zebra and Reticulated Giraffe. Loisaba, once known as Colcheccio Ranch owned by an Italian Count, has long been a successful cattle ranch with a luxury Lodge, but today, through the vision of a dynamic group of young White Kenyans who have leased it from the Count, the ranch is at the centre of a promising new partnership involving its tribal neighbors and an emerging mix of land uses, including high quality cattle, wildlife, tourism and local industry, operating and cooperating on the same land. One of The Wilderness Guardian Company's innovations is a series of "Star Beds" which are luxury open-air sleeping platforms scattered across the open bush of the Laikipia Plateau on the edge of the Great Rift Valley. Together with several complementary spin-offs such as handicrafts and mat-making, the project gives the community a new incentive to conserve the big game on land where such animals have never been considered anything other than a costly danger, a concept that has been difficult to change. This area has yielded five of our orphans over the years - Uaso, Loisaba, Laikipia, Tano and now Chemi Chemi.

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