Eco-friendly Furniture at RISE

When we were imagining how a facility – meant to promote cutting edge conservation research and address complex conservation challenges affecting the Serengeti ecosystem – ought to be, we knew that earth-conscious design was the way to go. So, in June 2020, when we completed the construction of RISE, our new research facility that has key components of sustainable design such as solar power, rainwater harvesting and the use of locally sourced materials, we were ecstatic. Yet, we wanted to do more. We reached out to as many local eco-conscious brands, and social enterprises as we could to furnish this building.

Here are the brands and businesses we supported:

Dunia Designs 

We here at Grumeti are proud One Planet warriors and generally try to avoid plastic use, opting for more eco-friendly materials whenever possible. But, in the rare cases where we do have plastic waste, we always recycle through Dunia Designs – an eco-friendly design company specialising in up-cycling of plastic bottles, plastic bags & other recycled materials to create customised furniture. Thanks to this ongoing relationship, we were able to source a comfortable sofa set for the creative space and a crocodile sculpture for the lobby at RISE. Dunia Designs does not just turn trash into treasure; they also commit to educating youth, employing local people (especially women) and equipping other businesses with earth-conscious raw materials.

Shanga 

Shanga is another one of our One Planet partners – we’ve been recycling glass waste with them for years. Shanga is an environmentally conscious, social enterprise dedicated to employing people living with disabilities. For 13 years now, this social enterprise has created unique, high quality, handmade jewellery, glassware and homeware that incorporates recycled materials. Shanga’s products are sold in Tanzania, and all over the world, with profits reinvested back into developing opportunities to employ more people living with disabilities. The lights in the creative space room, the chandelier in the gallery and all glassware in RISE is from Shanga.

WomenCraft

Adding character and a splash of colour to the bathrooms at RISE are WomenCraft decorative wall hangings.  WomenCraft is a Fair Trade certified social enterprise in Ngara District in the remote northeast of Tanzania. Since its inception in 2007, WomenCraft has increased economic opportunity in the post-conflict, tri-border area of Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania by bringing rural women together, facilitating their growth and connecting their artistry to the global marketplace. Through WomenCraft, over 600 artisans advance themselves, raise stronger families, stimulate their communities and inspire the world around them.

Inaya Zanzibar

The all-women production team at Inaya Zanzibar supplied the soap and lotions in the washrooms. Created from carefully selected African grown botanicals, oils, and essences using, whenever possible, organic and wild-harvested ingredients, Inaya’s products are both luxurious and eco-friendly. What drew us to Inaya is the fact that their products are handmade, hand-blended, hand-poured, and hand-packed in small batches to ensure optimum freshness, low waste and meticulous quality standards. 

Starfish Pottery

The pottery at RISE is hand-made in Arusha. Starfish Pottery products are wheel-thrown and hand-crafted from stoneware clay locally sourced. The business is woman-owned and produces in small batches with little to no waste. 

The Green Room 

RISE also has an outdoor table bench set from The Green Room. The set is made out of reclaimed wood by local artisans. All collections from The Green Room are designed and produced in Dar es Salaam, but they also feature products from over 40 other artisanal businesses in Tanzania and beyond. They also partner with many charities and organisations that they support through the sales of their products. The Green Room produces aesthetically, pleasing products that are also socially and environmentally responsible. 

Beyond purchasing eco-conscious decor, we also opted to work with and train local carpenters to build some of the furniture right here on site. Using FSC certified wood, local carpenters custom-made all of the tables and workspaces. 

While sourcing most of our furniture locally makes RISE the sustainable building we envisioned – in line with the overall ethos of the programs it will house – it also helps us stay true to our commitment to developing local communities. Many local businesses, especially ones that depend on tourism, have been negatively affected by COVID-19 so our purchases, though very small, have supported those businesses to stay afloat in these trying times. 

If you can support these businesses, we encourage you to do so. 

Grumeti Fund 2019 Swahili Impact Report

Ili kuleta mabadiliko ya haraka, serikali, makampuni binafsi, jamii na mashirika yasiyo ya kiserikali (NGOs) hawana budi kuboresha jinsi wanavyofanya kazi na kushirikiana. Kubadilishana maarifa ni kiungo muhimu katika kuleta mabadiliko haya. Mashirika yenye uzoefu wa muda mrefu kama Grumeti Fund yana jukumu la kushiriki katika kutafuta na kutoa ufumbuzi juu ya changamoto za kiuhifadhi na maendeleo ya jamii.

On Imparting Environmental Awareness to Youth

Since its inception in 2009, the Grumeti Fund Environmental Education Center (EEC) has seen over 5,000 students and teachers come through its open-air classroom.  One extraordinary man, Laurian Lamatus, has run this centre with unwavering enthusiasm – for the environment, for girl’s empowerment, for changing perceptions and increasing awareness amongst the youth who will be the leaders and changemakers of tomorrow.

We asked Laurian a couple of questions to learn more about him and the EEC.

Interviewer: Why have you chosen to educate the youth as the way to reduce human impact on the earth’s climate?

Laurian: Human population is currently over 7.5 billion, and there is no sign that the number will decrease down the line. So, my thought is that the only way to help mother earth sustain our daily needs and reduce the depletion of the resources we all depend on is environmental awareness. Awareness has the power to convince individuals to act positively and sustainably towards the environment. Sustainable use of natural resources while considering the future stock will always help the planet recover and provide more to all organisms in the ecosystem.

As an environmental educationist, I see the power education has to change people’s mindsets and decision making. Environmental education has everlasting impacts on youths in particular because they affect their schools, families and communities positively. And as they continue to make environmentally sound choices for the rest of their lives, generations become environmentally conscious.

Interviewer: Has this approach worked so far?

Laurian: The evidence is in the change that is already happening. Schools that I’ve managed to engage in environmental education have started and are managing environmental initiatives all on their own. Teachers are supervising environmental focused programmes such as debate, fine art and essay competitions, greening programmes and beekeeping. All these make schools with EE programmes look entirely different. They find their students practising proper waste disposal, and the schools become free of wastes. The students take these initiatives to the next level. They start cleaning their homes. They start thinking like the leaders they are and focus on impacting the greater community.

Interviewer: How is the work you are doing here, adding to the global conversations on climate change?

Laurian: Recently, we’ve joined world initiatives to protect worldwide biodiversity through the youth. Five of our students recently attended the World Youth Wildlife Summit held in Kruger National Park, South Africa. The conference was a call for the world youth to come together and forget their borders in favour of protecting threatened and endangered flora and fauna. Our students hold skype call meetings with peers from all over the world, so there is an understanding of what others globally are doing to help our planet. The Grumeti Fund has linked the EEC students to the Lisbon Zoo and Texas Girls’ School, to add value to local youths’ environmental knowledge. We firmly believe that greater youth involvement will push the world -especially the decision-makers- to think critically when it comes to matters and decisions pertaining to the environment.

Interviewer: Has this work changed you?

Laurian: Personally, environmental consciousness has changed my life in so many ways. My family and I started our own greening project at home. We now own more than eight thousand trees and plan to reach ten thousand in the near future. We are also thinking of establishing a beekeeping project to increase food production. It’s also nice to see how the EEC impacts the youth. I mean, the students go back to their schools, and they take the program to the next level.

Interviewer: Any last words?

Laurian: We live, eat, and breathe on one planet, we need to take care of our world so that it may continue to provide for us.

The change Laurian seeks is already underway. There are over 50,000 different species of trees planted in 15 schools under his guidance. His students have also gone on to become environmental conservationists and climate ambassadors influencing schools and communities to make environmentally sound decisions. His work is resounding, and we are not the only ones who think so. Laurian was recently featured in a CNN African Voices Changemakers episode.

This holiday season, we welcome you to donate to the EEC and amplify Laurian’s work and support our 2020 programs.

Have you ever seen an elephant cry?

A call comes in. An 18-month-old elephant calf has a snare caught on her leg. We run to the rescue as fast as we can and the vet quickly tranquillizes her so that we can proceed to remove the wire trap. Despite our good intentions, the calf’s mother is not happy to see us. Our noise and cars resembled too closely the angry villagers they often confront during their forays into crops at night. The calf’s mother huffs and puffs trying to push us and our vehicles away from her now sedated calf. She screams in agony and tears welled up at the sight of her unmoving calf, and the small herd of seven elephants hurdled around her and her fallen calf to ensure their safety. Anxious and determined to keep her baby safe, she charges at our vehicle only to return to her attempt to wake her calf.

It becomes adamantly clear that our noise and force is no match for the love of a mother elephant. We have to tranquillise her too because she isn’t able to bear the sight of what appears to be her seemingly half-dead calf in our care. We march into de-snare the calf as soon as the mother elephant falls asleep. The calf’s wounds are not too deep; she will survive. The vet cleans the injury; we grab blood samples and give the baby a good wash. We revive her with another injection. She wakes up and screams out to the herd from the top of her lungs. Her mother is also woken, and the two are reunited.

Snares are not uncommon in the Serengeti ecosystem. Though not meant to capture elephant parse, we receive many cases of snared elephants. We record every incident of its kind and work closely with government authorities to make sure no human harm befalls these gentle beasts. However, human-elephant conflict does not stop at snares. In the villages bordering the concession, 99% of people are farmers and their number one livelihood threat is elephants.  We often receive cases of elephants invading people’s farms. Consequently, many of our efforts are focused on mitigating these conflicts, which occur daily in and around crop planting and harvesting times.

A dedicated team of researchers monitor elephant movements through GPS and satellite tracking collars that appear in the EarthRanger visualisation program and who can also be found via telemetry in the field.  Each collar is connected to a geo-fence, sounding an alarm in the Ops Room every time a collared elephant moves out of the protected area and toward the village. The team records elephant movements over time to determine both their migratory patterns and their current locations to help stir them away from human habitats. The collaring project is a small effort in the plethora of research and monitoring that gets done here. We use state-of-the-art technology to accurately collect, analyse and shares ecological data to guide our decision making.

A notable decision outcome that was born out of conducted research is the Black Rhino Re-establishment Project which aims to restore eastern black rhino populations to the Serengeti. As this multi-phase project unfolds, the Research & Monitoring Department will continue to play a vital role in the observation -and when there is a need- intervention as the rhinos acclimatize and get used to the area.

Beyond this unique project, other department work includes monitoring changes in vegetation to map out herbivore movement patterns over time. The data collected also helps determine fire management strategies as well as understanding the usefulness of some of the grazing lands. The department also records camera trap surveys to monitor the distribution of some hard to come about mammals and conducts wildlife census and riparian surveys that help note the abundance of wildlife. Regular research and close monitoring ensure that we prevent animal habitat distractions before it is too late, catch alien plants as soon as they appear and mitigate human-wildlife conflicts. All the work that is done here help us come up with solutions for the problems that we face here in the Serengeti ecosystem, but which can be applied in similar scenarios across the country and even continent.

In that same vein, we are establishing RISE: Research & Innovation for the Serengeti Ecosystem. RISE aims to effectively bridge the gap between scientific research and management decision making. We are prioritising topical interests that are relevant to where we are so that we can collect data that justify our decisions but are hoping to build capacity for wildlife conservation efforts across the country.

Both the Research and Monitoring department and RISE will help us get closer to fulfilling our mission to contribute to the conservation of the Serengeti ecosystem for future generations.

Tuko Pamoja! We are together!

“Msichana hodari ninajitambua, ninajiamini nina ndoto kubwa. 

Msichana onesha uwezo wako.” 

“A strong girl, I know myself, I believe in myself, I have big dreams. 

Girl, show your strength.”

This was the chorus of the weekend for Grumeti Fund’s Community Outreach Program (COP) girls’ empowerment sessions. Over 1600 Secondary School girls from Bunda and Serengeti districts convened to discuss challenges hindering girls’ access to education and gain the tools to face and overcome them. Women from a myriad of professions came together to impart knowledge on reproductive health, menstrual hygiene, the importance of solidarity among girls, how to succeed in education and career development. All in hopes that these girls will come out of these sessions, empowered and determined to succeed in life.

The motto for these sessions is “Tuko Pamoja” which means, we are together. The women who organize these sessions really embody that spirit of togetherness and are inspirational role models for the girls. They come from different organizations but are united in their desire to inspire young girls to stay the course and get an education. 

Frida Mollel, Head of COP at Grumeti Fund, said “[girls] have to know the circumstances hindering their success in order to face them. Compared to their male counterparts, many challenges stand between them and education; early marriages, teenage pregnancies, FGM. But we want them to know that being a girl is not bad luck or crippling. You can be a girl and do great things in this world.”

Frida’s sentiments were echoed in the keynote speech by Rebeca Gyumi. Rebeca urged the girls not to be defined by their circumstances, and to be confident and assert their rights, especially their right to education. She told the girls that the changes they seek shall come from them. [They] should refuse to be part of the statistics of women who are mutilated or married at an early age.

Rebeca’s own work and life story typify her advise. She is a lawyer by profession and her organization, Msichana Initiative, is at the forefront of advocating for girls’ rights in Tanzania. She believes that our society’s perspective of a girl child needs to change, and parents need to realize their role in catalysing children success. She said, “A child’s potential is reached by building their knowledge and competence, and that can only be achieved through education. So, parents need to be the biggest champions of education.”

To further inspire and support girls to stay their course, Rhobi Samweli, Founder and Director of Hope for Girls and Women in Tanzania, shared her personal story. She was mutilated at a young age and grew up to establish a Safe House for young girls fleeing FGM in Mara region. At the end of her speech, the girls joined Rhobi in saying no to FGM with the war cry, “ukeketaji basi.” Later Mary Mwakyusa, a reproductive health specialist at Jhpiego, spoke to the girls about reproductive health and menstruation hygiene.

At the end of the sessions, the Grumeti Fund gave each girl a year’s supply of reusable pads. Ms Teddy, a teacher at Manchira Secondary School, expressed how this contribution will improve girls’ retention because more girls will feel comfortable and confident to attend school.

In agreement, Asteria, a student at Ikoma secondary school, said that “When a girl doesn’t have sanitary towels, it really affects her confidence. She can stop showing up to classes, which affects her academic success, and then she does not reach her dreams.”

When asked to share their takeaways from the sessions, Joanitha, a student from Sazira Secondary School, said that this was an excellent platform for girls “to share ideas, inspire and empower each other, and do activities together.” Joanitha also said she cannot wait to share her learnings with other girls so that they can also be inspired to reach their dreams. Pauline, a fellow student from Issenye Secondary School, added that “girls can continue to show respect in their communities while also standing up for their rights.”

Around the world, the next generation of girls are determined to speak up against injustices and are amplifying each other’s voices in their cry for justice. They are spreading a message of confidence and solidarity in achieving equality, despite several challenges along the way. How are you united in this course? Share your tuko pamoja (we are together) moment by tagging @grumetifund #tukopamoja #girlpower.

How humans and technology are working together to protect the western Serengeti

In front of the Kitaboka Wagora building stands four 3-meters-tall poles full of snares. These are all the snares that the Grumeti Fund scouts have collected in and around the Grumeti concessions in 2019. Some of these snares were found set between trees in the bush awaiting their prey, but some were cut off animals unlucky to have become entangled in the wire noose, freeing them from an unkind death. Poachers set the snares to trap plains game such as zebra, wildebeest, buffalo, topi or impala for the bushmeat trade but snares are indiscriminate killers and often times lions, hyenas, giraffes and elephants fall prisoners to these deadly traps. While bushmeat poaching is currently the largest threat to biodiversity here, elephant poaching for ivory is a constant and increasing concern. Named after a fallen game scout who was shot on duty by a poacher with a poisoned arrow in 2009, the building is the Joint Operations Center, J.O.C. It houses all the Anti-poaching and Law Enforcements Department’s command units.

From within these walls, the Grumeti Fund deploys cutting-edge technology to support its well-trained boots on the ground to combat all poaching threats. Alina, the Operations Room Coordinator and her team, the watchkeepers, monitor the entirety of the Ikorongo-Grumeti Game Reserves complex from their screens. Unlike regular computers, these devices have the Vulcan Inc. program called EarthRanger installed. Alina and the watchkeepers work 24/7 to control radio traffic and collect information from the ground that becomes key in making strategic decisions. For example, EarthRanger can detect movement patterns of all the 30 collared elephants. When an elephant crosses the boundary and enters the village lands, the watchkeepers receive a notification and alert the Human-Wildlife Conflict Mitigation Unit to respond on the ground. The program also captures the movements of all 12 permanent scout patrol camps which help the J.O.C. determine where to deploy its Mobile Patrol Unit (M.P.U).

The apex of the Anti-Poaching Department is the Special Operations Group. The S.O.G. are elite game scouts who are equipped and trained to react quickly to information regarding potential poaching threats anywhere in the Serengeti. The CrossFit trained group is made up of 16 scouts who are deployed in teams of four. At any point in time, one team is permanently stationed in the Rhino Intensive Protection Zone, one is a relief team while the two remaining teams act as the patrol teams. The S.O.G. has a Canine Unit that assists with all tracking needs. The canine unit is made up of rescue dogs from America and their handlers. This four-legged team is extremely effective, and when working in collaboration with the S.O.G. have a success rate of 77%.

The S.O.G works closely with the Joint Intelligence Unit, which is a collaboration between the Grumeti Fund and the Tanzanian Wildlife Management Authority (TAWA).  This part of the department is critical in enabling the team to be proactive – stopping poachers before they kill. Working strategically with the other teams within anti-poaching it has been a game-changer for security here.

We further survey the areas we operate in through a network of high-lying Observation Posts, which are manned 24/7. Some of our scouts form the de-snaring teams who patrol 20 kilometres a day scanning the land for animal traps. The de-snaring units comprise of mostly former poachers who have decided to put their knowledge to good use helping anti-poaching efforts. Poaching remains the biggest threat to wildlife in the Serengeti ecosystem and managing 350,000 acres of wilderness is not an easy feat but a solid boots on the ground foundation, coupled with technology and a focused strategy has allowed us to ensure that our limited resources are deployed efficiently and effectively.

To support the Grumeti Fund scouts click here