The Milgis Trust

Category: Milgis lugga, Samburu | Date: Aug 30 2008 | By: milgistrust

On the 10 of August I wrote about how amazing nature was at saving the situation when all seems lost!! THANKS to Nature!! Then on the 18 August, I told you how the people had decided to risk moving back to where the attacks had happened the month before… Better than letting the stock die of starvation..sorry, NO PICTURES again… Of course some of the stock has to stay back for the families to live off… Milk is most important for their survival.. and of course meat..The Goats and sheep that have stayed back are looking desperately thin, but as the title of this blog entails…The day is saved again… All along the sides of the Luggas the fruit from the Savadora Persica and Cordia Sinensis is in full swing.. … The people have moved there stock to live on the luggas, near the water and the fruit…Of course all the wildlife as well.. notably Baboons, vervet monkeys, thousands of Ravens… Civet cats, porcupines, any thing that likes fruit!! Its very dry now, and its really a miracle how our friend ‘nature’ does it..

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Category: Samburu | Date: Aug 28 2008 | By: milgistrust

And over grazing is not helping the situation..The worst problem is the damage that the hooves of the animals do when they are busy ‘overgrazing’!! We only hope that the first rain is not too heavy, as the erosion is going to be desperate, especially after what we saw on our walk up the Lowa Onyoke hill yesterday…What a shame.. The Samburu have an obsession, about ‘wasungu’ [white people] taking over their land, and when it comes to living here, there are times when one has to tread carefully so as not to get chucked out!!…Especially when you say something against their oldest traditions!! Keeping huge herds of stock.. Erosion in some areas, especially around Guasi, south of here, is becoming very serious, huge tracts of land are in danger of becoming completely bare..Already some are.. What I tell the Samburu, jokingly…. it would be better to give the land to ‘ wasungu ‘ , and at least you could steal the grazing off them!, rather than let the land be taken by the ‘ devil ‘!!

But all is not lost!! Yesterday morning we had a VERY interesting meeting with one of the elders from the area..He started by saying ‘You are right’… What about?? I asked.. He said ‘Ever since I’ve ever known you, you have talked about ..” The population of the people rising dramatically, which in turn means TOO MANY GOATS..and the land can’t take it!! ” Well ..we are beginning to see what you mean!!’ I couldn’t believe my ears.. For all these years I thought I was talking to a ‘ Brick wall ‘, the wall seems to be crumbling!..A bit, anyway.. Its a step in the right direction… Even though its still a long way from solving!!… But the subject has been breached, and hes asking me.. ‘How do we get every one on board, so that we can stem it’…

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Category: Milgis lugga, elephants | Date: Aug 27 2008 | By: milgistrust

The other name for the Milgis Lugga is ‘Elgerei’… a hot windy place… but this morning its lovely and calm… If I could describe 50 % of how I feel, or what I see this morning… I’m doing well… I am on a 600 foot hill, called ‘Elkanto’ [ Wild frontiers, and Milgis Trust base ] , above where the Laana Nikan and Barsaloi luggas meet and become the Milgis… We look strait down the Milgis Lugga winding its way to wards the east, where it divides the Matthews and Ndoto mountains…The morning light is picking up each and every one of the 1000 hills surrounding us, with the peaks of the two mountain ranges standing out majestically… The sand in the lugga is shimmering, picking up the early morning rays, and you can see fresh elephant tracks criss crossing the lugga… There is a herd of Elephants cracking branches, wondering around looking pretty content below the hill.. The radio operator has just walked past, and I asked him if he had any visitors last night… He said a porcupine came to drink water.. I told him we had 4 dikdiks right next to our bed!!

Yesterday morning we walked up the new radio hill.. Lowa Onyoke.. Its 1000 feet higher than The Milgis Trust base. This will give our radio coverage a huge boost..With the brave movements of the Elephants up north, to the places that they were wiped out in the 1970s/80s, we need good contact with our northern scouts who are paving the way’ for them…We need to warn the people who live on Mts Nyiru and Kulal that they are coming back, and to remind them of how to live with Elephants!!! This very essential project could not have been achieved without the generous help of the Shikar Safari Club Foundation… Thanks to Chuck Lathrop, and members of Shikar…And by the way… its going very well!!

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Aug 25 2008 | By: milgistrust

Just back from a six day camel safari in the Matthews Range… Our first and 5th nights being able to reap the good things that the Milgis Trust has set out to do..promoting co-existence between people, there livestock and wildlife… The first night sleeping out on the Laana Nikan Lugga… There is no way one can describe the feeling when a herd of Elephants are browsing and coming in your direction, with the wind behind them, and you are sleeping in a mosquito net on the ground… It has to get your adrenaline going!!…Can you imagine how big they look, when suddenly the moon disappears from site because he is so close? On the 5th day, a leopard grunting a few meters away from our tents… How fabulous is that….Very Exciting!!…

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Category: Turkana | Date: Aug 18 2008 | By: milgistrust

Yesterdays Blog had two pictures of our findings, 3 and a half months after the two Elephants died… But for some reason the pictures are not going on…I will be in Nairobi at the end of the month so will find out what the problem is… I’ve got so many fabulous pictures to share with every one…

No rain yet!! Its worse this year as we have had hundreds of people in the area near The Milgis Trust’s base, who ran away from the fighting, with their thousands of goats, sheep and cows… But in the last few days we have noticed mass movement of stock to wards the west, as they feel its better to deal with the Turkana than to let the animals die of starvation… brave people!! But the Turkana seem to be in abit of a squeeze at the moment, as they are fighting on both fronts… The other front against the pokot in the Suguta..The wildlife in the mean time have had a good break, in that there has been nobody for several months in the Suiyan area, so have had plenty to eat and no pressure over water!!.. The Grevey Zebra, of which there are only about 2000 left in the whole world, being one of the beneficiaries!, of the tribal fighting..

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Category: Samburu, elephants | Date: Aug 18 2008 | By: milgistrust

About a month ago, there was rain up in the southern part of the Kirisia hills, which brought the Laana Nikan Lugga [Seiya] in flood. The carcass of the Elephant that died in the beginning of may in the lugga was swept down stream about a kilometre or so.. I left it for two weeks before I went to check it out, to see if the all the Elephants would change course so as to visit their ‘old friend’, and amazingly enough, they had!! [ ref post 22/7/08] Interestingly the carcass is all most whole still, as the carnivores can not get through the tough skin, that has been baked hard by the sun..

As opposed to the other Elephant that died a few days earlier[post 7/5/08] but under a tree is almost only bones now, and has also been visited by hundreds of Elephants… The carcass is in thick bush, and all around is big open paths to the site, made by many visits of grieving, I suppose?, elephants… But what is very touching is to watch the samburu pay their respects to ‘The Elephant’.. They wait until there is a clean skull, and then they pick pieces of grass, or shrubs and stick them into the holes… In a way a little like when they pass the grave of their father, they will not go by with out sprinkling some tobacco, or leaving some food!!… In fact there is a legend that if they walk past with out leaving something, the food or what ever they are carrying will either burst the bag, or fall to the ground with out explanation.!!!..

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Aug 10 2008 | By: milgistrust

Hi every one… I’m back from my safari to Ngurnit!! Beautiful as usual… and even for me exciting!! [ I say this because I’ve been doing walking safaris in northern kenya for 25 years now… Each day I love it more, and learn more!].. I never managed to get to see the Wild dog den as per my last blog, because my little new puppie was too hot!! We had to climb a final mountain to get there and she was already sitting in the shade and asking me to carry her… But I now know were it is and will return!!

What was really interesting on this safari was how nature works things out… unless we ruin it!!… Just when its beginning to get abit dry and the animals are beginning to look thin, the acacia tortilis, [ a beautiful flat topped acacia], drops its load of seed pods, [they look abit like a curly green bean] but not all of them in a night but little by little, when the wind blows… and every single animal that eats ‘vegetable’ goes crazy, from the Elephants to the squirrels.. and of course all the samburus stock.. They call it sagiram, and its extremely nutritious.. Two nights out on safari we heard people coming out with there stock, at 4am so that they could get there first..talking and singing as loud as they could so as to encourage the Elephants to move off.. Again nature working wonders, the Animals then spread the seeds far and wide!….Then we get back to base where the sagiram season is finished, and the Acacias are all in flower, which when they fall to the ground, are also eaten by every thing, which keeps them going untill the rains come!! We hope that will happen soon…As I write this I have just heard thunder rumbling in the west but the wind is VERY strong from the east still..But its getting closer!!.

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