A Thank You from The Mount Kenya Trust

Published on the 16th of December, 2015

The Mount Kenya National Park was established to protect the wildlife and unique habitat of Mount Kenya and its surrounding environs

The Mount Kenya National Park was established to protect the wildlife and unique habitat of Mount Kenya and its surrounding environs. However Mount Kenya has effectively become an ‘island’ enclosed by dense settlement and agriculture, resulting in confinement of its elephant population, and increased incidences of human elephant conflict.

The Mount Kenya Trust (MKT) was set up to facilitate the long-term conservation of the National Park and to reduce conflict between local communities and wildlife. In 2010, MKT, in collaboration with other organizations, established an elephant corridor to link Mount Kenya with the Ngare Ndare forest, Borana Ranch, Lewa Wildlife Conservancy and beyond to Samburu National Reserve. The 28 kilometer corridor facilitates this historic elephant migration route and it is thought that approximately 2,000 elephants now have safe passage North thanks to its completion.

The Mount Kenya Trust provides key management of the Mount Kenya Elephant corridor, where their fencing/security teams fix any damage to the fences and patrol the corridor and the greater northern Mount Kenya area daily. Despite the presence of MKT rangers and horses, the teams in the elephant corridor and the National Park were not adequately supported without the use of a vehicle.

In 2015 The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust donated a land rover to the Mount Kenya Trust to assist in their essential work in keeping the corridor safe for elephants.

Susie Weeks from the Mount Kenya Wildlife Trust has recently stated:

The  new  Land  Rover has already increased our  ability  to manage  day to  day  operations  such  as  fence repairs and respond to emergency situations, such as arrests.  A huge part of the vehicle’s job will be to enable us to extend our influence and patrol bases from the area to include areas that could not be reached by foot in a day’s patrol.

Please pass on a huge thank you to the donors who helped DSWT provide MKT with the Land Rover which is now known affectionately as Mountain Bull, the iconic elephant who was known to all in the area but lost his life to poachers.