Giraffe Conservation

2024 AFEW Kenya - Giraffe Centre's Winners' Safari

Changing Mindsets: Winners’ Safari across Kenya

in: Safari Experience by: Giraffe Centre

For the 37th consecutive year, the Giraffe Centre proudly hosted the 2024 Annual Environmental Awareness Competition from January to March 2024. This initiative seeks to engage young minds in environmental conservation through various creative outlets, including essay writing, art, and group projects. This year, we were thrilled to receive over 5,000 entries from more than 150 schools nationwide. From these entries, we proudly crowned 250 students as winners during the World Environment Day celebrations held at our premises in Karen.

Among the prizes awarded, one highlight is a fully sponsored one-week safari across the country’s protected areas. The top 75 students from the competition had the incredible opportunity to visit, enjoy, and learn about wildlife in a truly immersive and entertaining way. The primary category recently embarked on an exciting safari to Samburu, Lewa, Ol Pejeta, Elsamere, and Maasai Mara. At each of these locations, we gained valuable insights into the historical significance of the areas, the cultures of the local tribes, and the initiatives they have undertaken to mitigate human-wildlife conflict. We also discovered how the existence of these protected areas benefits the surrounding communities.

We are confident that by fostering a shift in mindset regarding environmental conservation among future generations, we will cultivate champions for the environment. By exposing students to these natural settings and allowing them to engage with wildlife and conservation advocates, we will inspire nature enthusiasts who will understand and commit to protecting our natural world. 

This trip certainly ignited a passion for nature among this year’s winners in the primary school category. It’s a goal we aim to foster in all participants of our annual environmental awareness competition.

The one week safari was full of knowledge, adventure, fun and many firsts.

Knowledge

On the first day of our journey to Lewa Conservancy, we stopped at the equator crossing in Nanyuki. During this visit, we acquired valuable knowledge about the equator’s role as the central line in navigation and direction, as well as its impact on physical phenomena, such as the swirling of water as it drains. Additionally, the class on the magnetic field was incredibly enlightening, offering insights into why trees lean and how the wind blows. This was an essential lesson for Scouts enthusiasts.

That was just the beginning of our journey. Our visit to Lewa Conservancy was equally enlightening. We discovered how Lewa, traditionally viewed as a place for manhood and cattle grazing, has evolved into a leader in rhino conservation, environmental protection, and a champion for shifting mindsets within the communities of Nanyuki and Isiolo. This realization highlighted the incredible achievements that can be made when communities unite. Overall, the northern region of the equator has embraced community engagement in the realm of environmental conservation, yielding remarkable results.

 Mara: A Land of Adventure

Mara, a Maasai name meaning scattered bushes, is synonymous with adventure. Embarking on an overland journey across the savannah in search of wildlife was an exhilarating experience. By chance, we were fortunate enough to spot various animals and birds, learning fascinating facts about how they have adapted to life in the Mara. From the hippos in the Mara River and the waterbucks to the cheetah and spotted hyena, we encountered the majestic Black Rock Lion Pride. 

The Maasai Mara truly embodies adventure and serves as an incredible place to understand the interdependence of wildlife.

A Night Under the Stars: The Giraffe Centre’s Winners Safari

What truly sets The Giraffe Centre’s Winners Safari apart is the camping experience. Winners get to embrace life in a tent, immersing themselves in the wild. On this particular safari, we spent two nights under the stars, making our tent our cozy, temporary home.

It wasn’t just about sleeping in a tent; it was about the opportunity to learn and build our own shelter. 

We got to plan and design our space, making it comfortable and personal. This hands-on experience added a unique layer to the adventure, allowing us to connect with nature on a deeper level.

Imagine your child experiencing the thrill of a safari adventure, exploring the wonders of Kenya’s wildlife and learning about the importance of conservation. This isn’t just a dream, it’s a reality for winners of the AFEW Kenya – Giraffe Centre Environmental Awareness Competition!

As one parent put it, “It was a safari that greatly enriched my child’s holiday.” This incredible opportunity could be yours!

So, Kenyan school students, get ready to unleash your creativity and knowledge. The 2025 competition could be your ticket to a fully sponsored safari adventure. Think about the amazing memories you’ll create, the incredible wildlife you’ll see, and the impact you’ll make on the environment. It’s an experience that will stay with you forever!

World Giraffe Day: A Reflection on the Rothschild Giraffes

in: Activities by: Giraffe Centre

Happy World Giraffe Day! Today, we celebrate and stand tall for the majestic giraffes, the tallest animals on Earth. Despite their towering presence, giraffes are facing a silent extinction. Organizations like the Giraffe Centre have been at the forefront of conservation efforts for over 41 years, working tirelessly to prevent this silent extinction. One of the key initiatives has been the rewilding of the Rothschild Giraffes, along with  supporting research on giraffe conservation in Africa.

Ms. Consolata Gathoni, a student researcher published a research paper on the Activity Time Budget and Foraging Patterns of the Rothschild’s Giraffe in Lake Nakuru National Park. The research  has provided invaluable insights into the behaviours, habitat, and ecosystem of the Rothschild giraffes.

The paper’s most significant finding was that:-

  • Giraffes exhibit different behaviors based on gender, with bulls spending less time feeding and more time resting, while cows focus more on browsing.
  •  Giraffes prefer browsing in the morning and evening, with increased resting time in the afternoon.
  • The Rothschild giraffes in Lake Nakuru National Park predominantly spend their time in the vachellia woodlands, with the remaining time divided between grasslands and bush woodlands.
  • Specific tree species like Vachellia Gerrardis and Grewia Similis are only browsed during certain seasons, highlighting their dietary preferences.
  • Male giraffes feed at higher points on trees, optimizing their access to leaf biomass.
  • Factors such as reproductive requirements and basal metabolism contribute to the differences in foraging behavior between male and female giraffes.

Nutritional Concerns

  • The debarking of Yellow Barked Acacia trees by giraffes in LNNP indicates nutritional deficiencies, leading to biodiversity loss.

 

  • Giraffes consuming Maytenus Senegalensis during the wet season highlights their adaptability to changing nutritional needs.

Challenges Faced by LNNP

  • Loss of forage space due to rising lake levels, resulting in a 2km loss of grazing land.
  • Nutrient deficiencies in the park, evidenced by giraffes foraging on toxic plants like Solanum Incanum, posing a threat to other wildlife.

On this World Giraffe Day, let us pledge to continue our efforts to protect these graceful creatures and ensure a sustainable future for the Rothschild giraffes and their habitat.

#StandTallforGiraffes #ProtectTheGiraffes: Safeguarding Giraffes for a Sustainable Future 🦒✨

Photo by Brian Siambi

2023 Prize Giving Day Trophies

Celebrating Kenya’s Environmental Champions: A Tribute to AFEW Participants

in: Announcements by: Giraffe Centre

It is with immense joy and gratitude that we extend our heartfelt thanks to each and every one of you who participated in the 2024 AFEW Kenya Environmental Awareness Competition. Your dedication, passion, and commitment to environmental stewardship have not only inspired us but have also contributed significantly to the preservation and conservation of our planet.

From the bustling streets of Nairobi to the serene landscapes of the Rift Valley, your collective efforts have undoubtedly made a profound impact on raising awareness about the importance of environmental sustainability. Whether through innovative projects, compelling artwork, or insightful essays, your creativity and enthusiasm have shone brightly, illuminating a path towards a greener and more sustainable future for Kenya and beyond.

As the competition came to a close on March 31st, we were truly overwhelmed by the quality and diversity of entries we received. Each submission was a testament to your unwavering commitment to making a positive difference in the world around you. Your dedication to environmental conservation is not only commendable but serves as a beacon of hope for generations to come.

To all the participants, we offer our sincerest congratulations on your outstanding contributions. Your hard work and determination have not gone unnoticed. You are all winners in our eyes, and we are immensely proud of each and every one of you.

Now, as we eagerly anticipate the moment of celebration, we are thrilled to announce that the winners of the 2024 AFEW Kenya Environmental Awareness Competition will be feted on the 7th of June, 2024. This will be a day of recognition, appreciation, and celebration of your remarkable achievements. We cannot wait to honor your dedication and showcase your remarkable accomplishments to the world.

To those who emerged victorious, we extend our warmest congratulations. Your exemplary efforts have set a benchmark for environmental advocacy and activism. You are the trailblazers, the changemakers, and the guardians of our planet’s future. May your passion continue to ignite change and inspire others to join the noble cause of environmental conservation.

Commending the Victorious Participants of the 2023 AFEW Kenya – Giraffe Centre Annual Environmental Awareness Competition

in: Announcements4 Comments by: Giraffe Centre

We have had numerous environmental conservation programmes with the goal of altering mindsets throughout the last 40 years of The Giraffe Centre’s existence. These programmes are classified into three categories: funding, school programmes, and giraffe conservation.

The Annual Environmental Awareness Competition is one of the school programmes. This competition has been going on for 37 years. This competition seeks to provide students from Kenyan schools with an opportunity to express their opinions on environmental conservation based on a predetermined theme. They submit essays or artwork in response to level-specific questions. Students from Pre-school to Undergraduate can take part.

Ladies and Gentlemen, let’s give a round of applause to the outstanding winners of this year’s competition. These exceptional students truly shone among a pool of remarkable entries. Their compelling perspectives on the environmental conservation theme, “It Is Time for Change! Let’s Restore Our Mother Nature,” resonated powerfully.

Click here to get the list of winners

Competition

2022 AFEW KENYA ANNUAL ENVIRONMENTAL COMPETITION

in: Activities by: Giraffe Centre

Happy New Year. We hope and believe that you’ll have a successful year.

To start off, we have our annual competition up. The competition will be running from January 1st, 2022 to March 31st,2022.

The aim of the competition is to get students to engage in environmental conservation. The theme of the competition seeks to jog the students minds concerning current conservation issues and express them through either essays, drawing or an artistically taken photograph. The winners of the competition will get to visit some of the great conservation sites and organizations we have in Kenya.

To get the poster for the competition please click here

We wish you a prosperous 2022

NAMING GIRAFFES THE AFRICAN WAY

in: Animal Habitat by: Giraffe Centre

Literature on African Societies child naming ceremonies is quite fascinating. Mark Babatunde in his article titled 7 Most Fascinating Traditional African Baby Naming Ceremonies, describes the naming ceremony of a new baby among many African communities as one of the most important rites of passage in life as it announces the birth of a newborn, introduces the child to his or her extended family and the larger community, and above all, it confers on a child name.  According to the Sweet Mother International organization, birth and child naming are the very substance that weaves the thread, binding us into something larger than ourselves, towards which all of humanity gravitates.

Different African Sociology Scholars have described child birth and naming as joyful communal affairs, quite universal and persistent across generations. However, traditions vary with a given community, time and region. The two events have great significance for life perpetuation of the community in the future. As the new generation can offer that support to the old generation when they need support in old age. 

Giraffe naming process is not new at AFEW Kenya – Giraffe Centre as it started way back in 1979 at the time when the idea of saving the Rothschild’s giraffes from western Kenya was born. Betty Leslie Melville, the co-founder of AFEW Kenya named the first two young giraffes brought to their property in Lang’ata, Nairobi as Daisy and Marlon. Daisy was named after her favorite flower ‘Daisy” which grew abundantly within her home compound. From 1979 – 2017, all giraffes born or brought to Giraffe Centre were given names of people from different parts of the world who in one way or another have made a major contribution to AFEW’s conservation work. 

However, from 2017 this naming process was changed in favour of adopting a universal giraffe naming system. The new naming system use Kiswahili names of flowers and trees.  With the adoption of the new naming system, female giraffes are named after flowers while male giraffes are named after trees to represent their femininity and masculinity nature respectively. Active involvement of the general public has been at the core of this process. Members of general public are allowed to suggest or choose their most preferred giraffe name through AFEW’s social media platforms.

Just like in traditional African society, when a child is born, midwife normally announces the birth of the newborn child to the larger community. In most instances, the parents hold celebrations in appreciation to the creator for the gift of a newborn. Many people in the community including relatives, friends and neighbors will from time to time come to celebrate and rejoice with the family. They also bring different gifts for the mother and newborn child. Offering gifts to the newborn is done among African communities as a way of showing love, friendship and blessings to the child, mother and community

AFEW – Giraffe Centre would like to invite the general public in the virtual naming of three female giraffe calves. This event will be held on Monday, June 21st, 2021 as part of commemorating the World Giraffe Day which is normally marked every year on June 21st. Feel free to follow the link below and join us in celebrating these giraffe calves. We would also like to appeal to the general public to make financial contributions as gifts towards celebrating milestones made towards saving Rothschild’s giraffe from silent extinction. Send contributions of at least KShs.1000 equivalent to USD 10 towards this worth cause. All proceeds will go towards giraffe welfare management and eventual return to the wild of the young giraffes once they attain the recommended giraffe translocation age by Kenya Wildlife Service.

Why should you participate in this giraffe naming programme?

  1. You will receive acknowledgement for your support/contribution with your name appearing on the list of sponsors during the naming ceremony.
  2. You will receive regular updates of the named giraffes from AFEW Kenya.
  3. You will be invited to witness the eventual translocation of the same giraffes from the Giraffe Centre to a selected suitable habitat as part of the reintroduction back to the world to increase the natural population of Rothschild’s giraffes in Kenya.

To support the conservation of the Rothschild Giraffe, use this link to the platform to use for sending your contribution.

https://www.giraffecentretickets.co.ke/donation

References

2020 AFEW Competition Essay Entry by Ms. Shirley Kemuma Magabi

in: Competition Entries3 Comments by: Giraffe Centre

Happy new year to everyone. Annually, AFEW Kenya – Giraffe Centre hosts an Environmental competition for Kenyan students. This competition runs from January 1st to March 31st. Last year, 2020, we did host as usual. Unfortunately, we had to cancel due to unavoidable conditions.

We are grateful, however, for the students who were able to submit their entries for the same. So we will be posting them on our website.

The first article we are posting is by Ms. Shirley Kemuma Magabi

 Click on the 2020 Competition theme “Healthy Planet, Healthy Biodiversity, Healthy People” to read her thoughts.

Tree planting

Everything goes

in: Activities by: Giraffe Centre

One’s poison is another’s food. That thing that seems small, useless to you means the world to another. The psalmist in one of his psalms would note this as he explains how everything means something to someone. He’d give an example with the water streams and towers, how from the rocks to the leaves need water.

CEO Giving students seedlings

I experienced this phenomenon with a cypress tree. Before you get up in arms with a claim on deforestation, it fell on its own on my neighbor’s vegetation and the tree was his. It was interesting how each person who saw the tree would envision it.

A carpenter saw frames for their creative ideas, a brick entrepreneur saw firewood for drying bricks, so on and forth.

There is a group, however, that interested me. They were keen to check for the hollow part of the stem. Why? If you ask me, it seems like they are missing a full part of the donut. Who in their right mind would go for the space between a donut. These guys would and they did.

One of the guys, just by knocking on one side of the cut trunk and knew it had honey in plenty. Apparently, in the olden days, that honey was the medicine for cold and flu. These guys didn’t just come here to look for materials for income, also for health from the cypress tree.

The only way these guys would have known this secret is if they were taught by their society members. By this simple secret, they have made a habit of growing trees with a sole purpose of honey where they’ll let them grow old, then fall on their own volition and hope for a bumper harvest of wood, sawdust, firewood and most important, honey.

Kelly's 5th Born Calf.

Kelly’s Fifth Born

in: Animal Habitat, Announcements2 Comments by: Giraffe Centre

Good day today it is. It’s not normal to witness a new born Giraffe Calf.

But this is no ordinary birth. Kelly is a legend already, this is her 5th born calf. Normally, giraffe’s gestation period is 15 months, but Kelly here did 17 months. That’s two whole months extra. Giraffes do this when they feel like the environment they are in is not conducive for giving birth. In this case, this would probably be because of the delayed rainy season.

So giraffes too are thrilled for the rain. Congratulation to Kelly.