What's New at LCF
Field Courses
University professors will be teaching several courses for the Centre for Lion Conservation and Research. The courses give students practical field experience while contributing to a field research project. Students assist scientists, collect and analyze data, use field equipment, and participate in wildlife census and surveys as well as habitat assessment and restoration projects. Guest speakers and seminar leaders include some of the most eminent field biologists working in Africa today.
Learn more about Field Courses
famine Impacts Samburu District
A severe widespread famine has emerged in the Samburu District, a result of a brutal Kenya police attack in February, in which police confiscated over 5000 head of cattle across the district, leaving residents without food during the region's most recent drought. The drought in East Africa is thought to be one of the worst droughts in recent history, impacting 7 countries and over 17 million people, including communities and people across the Samburu District. While this region has always been impacted by drought events, some experts believe that climate change has increased their frequency, severity, and duration. In addition, people who were once nomadic and moved with rains, such as the Samburu, are now forced to live on group ranches without alternatives for surviving these extreme conditions. In addition to looss of life, this policy puts more pressure on the landscape, resulting in environmental degradation, worsening the impact of drought. LCF supports traditional indigenous practices that once allowed communities to live more sustainably within their ecosystems. Project Simba is mobilizing the community and others to respond quickly to assist the people, livestock, and wildlife facing this emergency. We are responding to this crisis by providing food, water, medical supplies and other emergency services to those in the most remote locations of northern Kenya, where relief supplies are not available. Our efforts include emergency humanitarian aid, intermediate interventions, and long-term sustainable solutions that are ecologically sustainable and sound..
Learn more about Samburu District
Lerata Primary School
The Lerata Primary School first opened in 1970. For 2 years, classes were held under an acacia tree until a rudimentary school could be built. The school operated successfully until the 1990 Somali Massacre. Dozens of villagers were killed, some with infants tied to their backs; surviving families fled to nearby mountains. When it was safe to return to their home, the community was refused permission to re-open the school for the next 15 years. Government officials claimed they'd abandoned' it when fleeing the violence. LCF helped re-open the school in 2005 and provides supplies, books, and equipment to the school. It is also helping link Lerata Primary School with sister schools and individuals in the US and UK through the the Center for Lion Conservation and Research in Kenya. Schools exchange lessons and learn about each other's geography, culture, and lives. Today, Lerata Primary School is the model school for our conservation education program, Project Simba.
Learn more about Lerata Primary School
Kids Helping Kids
Children from around the globe are raising money and awareness about lion conservation and humanitarian aid. In Michigan, two young girls organized a bake sale to raise funds to help provide food & water for the Samburu Tribe in Kenya. 8 year-old Graham from upstate New York recycled cans to conserve lions...
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Clinic
At LCF and the Centre for Lion Conservation and Research, we take a holistic approach to wildlife conservation. Often, that means meeting the basic needs of people who live with wildlife and who are most impacted by them. By finding solutions that work for both people and wildlife, our conservation programs have had remarkable success. Recently, we built a medical dispensary to provide basic medical needs to community members, free of charge. In return, community members have teamed up to assist us in habitat restoration efforts....
