Friends of Conservation — Masai Mara, Kenya

For more than a quarter century, core support from Abercrombie & Kent Philanthropy and A&K Kenya has enabled Friends of Conservation (FOC) to support traditional and sustainable ways of living in harmony with wildlife and ecosystems and to promote climate change solutions to alleviate the effects of global warming.

Working directly with Maasai communities and local stakeholders in the renowned Mara-Serengeti Ecosystem, FOC helps to:

• Engage 5,000 Maasai students annually in environmental activities with Conservation Clubs in 50 Mara schools
• Bring conservation to Maasai children in the most remote regions — who receive no formal education — through a Mobile Education Unit.
• Facilitate a community scout program that monitors wildlife and their movements, reducing incidents of human-wildlife conflict and deterring illegal activities such as charcoal burning and the poaching of bush meat
• Support Maasai communities in their chosen enterprise development initiatives, creating direct sources of income from tourism through traditional beadwork and beekeeping projects
• Restore forest resources with tree planting projects that have involved Conservation Clubs, local communities, camps and lodges and their guests in planting more than 250,000 trees in the Greater Masai Mara Region
• Preserve existing forests with alternative and renewable sources of energy such as biogas, converting the biomass of domestic animals into clean renewable energy for cooking