Restoring the Lost Dominion
by Beatrace Ndisha Mwanjala
Coming from an arid and semi-arid background in Taita Taveta County, a village near Tsavo National Park in Kenya bordering Tanzania, I had to be resilient to acquire knowledge. As a young 11-year-old girl in primary school, I was denied a right. Due to the lack of easy access to school, I had to walk miles from home and walk while still dark to get to school in good time. One day, my little brother and I at 5 am in the morning met an elephant and its baby who were migrating from Tanzania to Tsavo National Park. We were so close, but with the help of God, my younger brother saw the elephant tusks, and we devised an escape plan. We ran fast, screaming, and we hid behind a bush, shaking and afraid as I hugged my brother close. We watched them graze as we waited for help. After some hours, we were rescued by a village elder and taken to school.
Though this kept on happening, no one said or did anything to act on the human-wildlife conflict. Human-wildlife conflict around my area led to us being fearful, and this is why children seek to drop out of school for the sake of their safety. Not only it affects school-going children but also farmers and households, who have suffered property losses and damages. Due to these conflicts, coupled with environmental & social inequity/injustices, and even land grabbing and conservancy encroachment, rumours spread that civilians were creating bush and forest fires in Tsavo National Park in 2020 to make their voices heard, costing damage to a very large ecosystem adding on biodiversity loss.
At the same time, as a family who practised agriculture, using chemicals to enhance productivity and soil disturbing tillage was rampant. Chemicals found their way to our scarce water sources, posing adverse health risks. This pollution and land degradation, together with big gullies left behind due to erosion and mineral harvesting, brought about natural system imbalances, contributing to climate change. These combined pressures give wild animals no choice but to migrate to other places for pastures and water. With all these coupling issues at hand and exposure to these risks, families find themselves in a vicious cycle of poverty, generations and generations with no future.
My personal school experience, which I’m proud to talk about, stretched my mindset and belief systems. Water was scarce, and I had to move long distances after school to search for water, complete my house chores and still attend to our mini shop based at home, attend to my siblings and prepare dinner. With no time and light for me to complete my homework since there was no electricity and paraffin was too expensive for my family to cater, I had to get up so early so that I get to school before the teacher to complete the homework and still perform my duties as a timekeeper for the whole school. This routine tested my resilience to search for education, tested my patience, my ability to stretch and perform even without any form of appreciation, and to always find a solution to problems.
Since the experience with wild animals on our way to school, as well as being chased by stray dogs as we walk to school, I have sought to stand for the safety rights of young school-going children who walk miles to school. Being a global youth ambassador for education at TheirWorld has enabled me also to influence leaders to act on the human-wildlife conflict, a factor affecting healthy spaces for children to learn. I envision a world where every child has a safe place to learn and a child’s education is not compromised by environmental factors like human-wildlife conflict, especially with ongoing climate change. As a global county ambassador for peace at Global Peace Foundation in my county, I implement clean-up activities with youths in my county and in various youth-led environmental and conservation groups. To date, we have trained children and mentored in 2 children's homes on environmental conservation and participated in tree and grass planting in schools, Nairobi National Park and government spaces, all to bring to life spaces for meditation and recharging to fight against climate anxiety.
We have also proposed recycling contests in schools to manage plastic and glass waste. We have trained more than 500 smallholder farmers and youth farmers in Taita Taveta County on conservation, climate-smart agriculture and capacity. This helps them to use sustainable land-ecosystem management and traditional ecological indigenous knowledge to manage the wildlife interferences, as prioritised under the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization. In addition, we have also implemented walks and advocacy campaigns to influence policymakers through activism for authorities and organizations responsible for listening to the voices of the people, especially victims of human-wildlife conflict who need compensation and protection. In the process of finding sustainable solutions, proposals on the ground are to create and empower farmer groups to have literacy skills and launch by themselves a pool of funds to compensate for their losses in the event of risk occurrence due to human-wildlife conflict and climatic risks.
According to new research, consumers are responsible for more than 60% of the globe’s greenhouse gas emissions and up to 80% of the world’s water use. Acknowledging tree planting and activism, it is important to also look at the environmental impacts from a consumer perspective. According to new research, consumers are directly responsible for 20% of all carbon impacts. This means that real environmental problems are embodied in our daily choices and the services and products we consume. Before natural resources and biodiversity are extinct, we have to use means, including psychological means, to change consumer habits and educate on concepts such as minimalism. As a community development and environment student and an entrepreneur, I have launched a social start-up that produces eco-friendly products such as reusable and nature-based straws, packaging bags, kitchen items, beauty items and eco fertilizer. Currently, it is in its prototype and development phase to enable people to reduce their carbon footprint without compromising lifestyle.
All in all, we focus on educating people to change their consumption patterns and habits since these changes will drastically affect our environmental footprint. This way, we will join hands to manage single-use plastic waste and pollution and reduce greenhouse gas emissions due to burning and in turn, bring about a circular economy with co-benefits such as poverty eradication, good health and well-being, sustainable production and consumption patterns and intergenerational equity.
About
Ndisha is a community development and sustainability enthusiast and an award-winning environmentalist and storyteller. Her mission is to serve humanity and the environment by empowering and enlightening communities to explore solutions to problems caused by environmental and climate change affliction.
She has dramatically indulged in climate action and worked towards the realization of the UN Sustainable Development Goals in conservation groups whilst creating employment for the youth in Zimo Africa Group, a green social enterprise which she founded. The enterprise deals with the production of eco-friendly products to ensure that people reduce their carbon footprint without compromising lifestyle and conservation awareness through media and storytelling.
She is a Hult Prize OnCampus winner and regional final six 2020, Africa Green Grant 2020 finalist, a Youth Empowerment Program Initiative fellow, and 25 Under 25 Young Leaders environment category awardee.
She is currently a Regional Young Forest Communicator with UNECE FAO and a Project Assistant at WWF Kenya working with Tsavo Mkomazi based Conservancies and young people to sensitize on the benefits of Wildlife and environmental conservation and bring Sustainable Development Goals and sustainability come to life. She is dedicated to the green revolution and community empowerment.
Having experience in human and nature conflicts, she became resilient. As a global county ambassador at Global Peace Foundation in Kenya, she has conceived projects that aim at restoring forests, and she has educated her community to live in harmony with nature.
With other young people, she has trained more than 500 smallholder farmers and youth farmers in Taita Taveta county on conservation, climate-smart agriculture and she has built their capacity on sustainable land management, ecosystem management, and on traditional ecological indigenous knowledge to manage the wildlife interferences under the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization. She has also implemented walks and advocacy campaigns to influence policymakers through activism for authorities and organizations responsible for listening to the voices of the people, especially victims of human-wildlife conflict who need compensation and protection.
As the Founder of Zimo Africa Group, she has launched a social start-up that deals with the production of eco-friendly products such as single-use as well as reusable nature-based straws, packaging bags, kitchen items. The start-up focuses on enabling people to reduce their carbon footprint without compromising their lifestyles. The products are made of non-wood products and the start-up researches on deforestation-free products. The start-up team raises awareness by holding lighting talks on social media of the importance of forest conservation with the goal of having their own podcast and TV show to change mindsets and attitudes.
This is her effort in restoring the lost dominion.