On the subject of Exclusion Zones...

After a serious spell of drought in East Africa, November 2011 has given us some of the best rain for the last three decades. There are many benefits of this blessed rain. Animals such as buffalo, warthog and waterbuck are in abundance, the water table has been restored and on Borana the abundant grass has created such a spong to capture the rain, that the little long-dormant springs are now flowing.

The long term reward of this blessed bounty can be seen in the exclusion zones that we have created by fencing off areas to protect the growing trees from browsing by elephant and giraffe. The surge of new growth is dramatic. The young yellow fever trees are suddenly creating little forests of their own. On the outside of the fenced zones one can see how decastating the affects of drought can be. Outside the fences, the same trees have had the growing tips of every branch nipped off and the little trees have a competely different sort of Bonsai growth form. Interestingly these dwarfed trees have grown massed berries of thorns to defend them from lesser browsers like the impala.

In the long term there will be forests within the exclusion zones and open grass plains outside the zones. It is in effect a win win situation and is rapidly becoming a successful conservation strategy.

The great drought did have one fringe benefit. By the time we had finished the building of the Elephant Corridor which links the Lewa Conservancy to the Mount Kenya forest the elephants on Lewa were short of food. Soon after we opened the corridor, Charles Dyer collected a pick up load of fresh elephant droppings from Borana and scattered them around the entrance of the tunnel under the busy main road. That very evening the first elephant went through the tunnel. The next day, that elephant was tranquilised and fitted with a radio collar and released to continue his pioneering journey to Mount Kenya. I am very proud that he has been named Tony. Since then there have been many hundreds of elephant movements through the tunnel and the corridor is being hailed as the great conservation success of recent years.