We are in the second year of the Covid pandemic as World Environment Day is happening. For the past one year, a lot of influence on our choices and the way we relate with the environment has been made and we have also had a chance to reflect on the adverse effect of the pandemic in our communities. It is a reminder that the environment is a vital aspect of the ecosystem that we can’t live without. Our attention as SORALO is drawn closer to the fact that we need to put more efforts in promoting the health of communities and their landscapes. This year’s World Environment Day theme is ECOSYSTEM RESTORATION. Ecosystem restoration is about conserving degraded or destroyed ecosystems; conserving the fragile ecosystems (ecosystems that are highly sensitive to environmental changes); and conserving ecosystems that are intact (ecosystems that are in good state and need our attention to maintain their status). We join the efforts of UN in helping promote the restoration of ecosystems especially within the Kenya’s South Rift landscapes. As our vision continues to orchestrate a healthy and intact landscape that sustains pastoralists communities and wildlife, SORALO is focused in its strategic plan of 2018-2023 to ensure there is a connection between the Maasai communities, landscape and wildlife in the south rift of Kenya. Our efforts in the past have shown a great improvement in the restoration of ecosystems, as there has been mostly peaceful coexistence between communities and wildlife within the landscapes of our operations. In some areas the landscape has also improved in terms of health (vegetation cover, wildlife increase and community livelihoods as the livestock have enough pasture and water). We have seen the communities making decisions that are sustainable like land use and settlement plans in favour of the ecosystems. Our three principles of ecosystem restoration: Eramatare, Enkanyit and Entaisere has seen more successful efforts in conservation of the ecosystem. Enkopang (our landscape) and entaisere (the future) are our driving forces to helping communities restore their ecosystems. With a sustainable future (entaisere) in mind, the community can sustainably take the responsibility to conserve the ecosystem and their landscape (enkopang). We are also helping influence ecosystems restoration through our education outreach program, as we can only change the future sustainably by growing a generation of conservationists. Our education outreach program in schools with the south rift landscapes is influencing school children to make decisions that directly impact the environment and their communities. We fully support the efforts of the communities working with us in conservation, and will continue to work hard in restoring the ecosystems. (A big thank you to Bobby Neptune for providing us with this stunning image from the SORALO landscape).
