‘I hope their stories go far and wide’

The Duke of Cambridge has saluted the work of the Tusk award winners dedicated to helping communities and wildlife coexist harmoniously, says Sarah Marshall ‘You can’t have a gun under every tree where animals are found’

As human populations explode and natural habitats shrink, the future of Africa’s wilderness hangs in the balance. Fortunately, there are conservation warriors fighting at the front line to find a coexistence between humans and the creatures who also call this planet home.

Their deserving work receives recognition at the Tusk Conservation Awards, supported by royal patron the Duke of Cambridge, pictured below. Three inspirational candidates were nominated for this year’s Tusk Award for Conservation in Africa, which offered a prize of £75,000 over three years.

The winner was John Kamanga, a Kenyan Maasai. He was presented with his award by the Duke of Cambridge during a virtual ceremony, streamed online. Sao Tomean sea turtle conservationist Hipolito Lima was honoured for his lifetime achievements with the Prince William Award for Conservation in Africa and an accompanying three-year grant of £100,000. The Tusk Wildlife Ranger Award was given to Amos Gwema who works around Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park. He received a three-year grant of £30,000. According to the Duke of Cambridge, “The funding part of the prize is crucial so that those individuals who do win feel that they are going to benefit and to have some sort of tangible impact toward their work. That money goes a long way.”

During a video call with Charlie Mayhew, CEO of Tusk, the Duke said of this year’s nominees and winners: “A lot of these people go under the radar. I hope pe the Tusk Awards highlight and showcase howcase their wonderful l talent and hard work k across the globe. I hope ope their stories go far and wide, that people feel inspired and young people ple look to these role models and say, ‘I can do the same.’ e.’” ”

Standing on an escarpment, John Kamanga surveys the brittle grasslands rolled out like a threadbare, yellowed rug all the way to the foot of Shompole Mountain. Twenty years ago, his Maasai homeland looked very different.

“We called this area ‘ the dustiest place’,” he recollects, describing a landscape so dry and barren it was frequently prone to blinding dust storms and grit-hurling tornadoes. “It’s where the community would bring cattle during times of drought.”

Once nomadic settlements had been shifted, it only took five rainy seasons for the pasture to bounce back. Now it has been set aside as a conservation area within Shompole Conservancy in Kenya’s Kajiado district and serves as an example of what can be done if land is managed properly.

As executive director and founder of the South Rift Association Of Landowners (Soralo), a grassroots collective of Maasai-owned group ranches that connects the Amboseli and Maasai Mara ecosystems, Kamanga is a fierce advocate for protecting fence-free landscapes where communities benefit from shared ownership.

“Collectively, we are very strong as a group,” says the innovative thinker, whose mind whirrs so rapidly with ideas that conversations can be dizzying. From tourism initiatives to grazing rotation plans and visions for an interactive Maasai cultural and historical visitor centre, the scope of his work is huge. Yet he is never overwhelmed. On a four-hour journey through one of the few remaining communal Maasai lands, he finds time to speak with every pastoralist and knows them all by name.

“The government has been struggling with the traditional control and

John Kamanga: ‘Communities are the custodians of wildlife’ protection of wildlife. But you can’t have a gun under every tree where animals are found,” says Kamanga, on his way to a meeting on the outskirts of Olkeri village.

In a small schoolroom, a group of Maasai elders listens attentively as a lawyer explains their rights to formalise customary land tenure under the 2016 Community Land Act. Although it is probably the first time many of these cattle herders have stood in front of a chalk board, everyone has an educated opinion to share.

“This legislation gives communities a very big say in what happens to their land,” says Kamanga, who believes the future of conservation lies in community empowerment. “That’s why we’ve offered them free legal advice.”

The first member of his family to attend school, Kamanga is adept at juggling the Western world with an indigenous way of life. Even though he now lives with his wife and children in Nairobi, he still comes home to herd his cattle in this semi-arid landscape, where lions shift stealthily through the husks of umbrella thorn trees and flamingos flock above psychedelic salt lakes.

An invitation to assist researchers counting tsetse flies and butterflies in the region was a formal introduction to environmental work, but a fundamental knowledge of land use and respect for wildlife came from his father.

“Maasai have rules and taboos. You cannot cut a tree, for example,” he explains, arguing that these traditions should now be strengthened as a framework for future conservation.

“Communities have been, and will continue to be, the custodians of wildlife. Now we need to give them the tools for today.”